5 ms·
I really dislike when a tiny fraction of the conspiracy theories become true since it validates people who believe in them. But I have to admit I do have one of
by himata4113 5mo ago
I really dislike when a tiny fraction of the conspiracy theories become true since it validates people who believe in them. But I have to admit I do have one of my own, pegasus and related spyware can gain a lot of power over politicians i.e. blackmail which makes me think about how much of our politics are based solely on the fact that politicians often find themselves exploiting their powers and then possibly getting caught by spyware turning them into somewhat of a tool.
- colordrops 5mo ago[flagged]
- himata4113 5mo agoIt's mostly about X conspiracy theory turned out to be true, so the Y conspiracy must be true! The fact that it even has to be a conspiracy theory that later gets validated is what annoys me, asking questions is okay, claiming conspiracy as fact is not.
- make3 5mo agoThinking that Israel potentially spies on the US government is not what anyone reasonable would call a conspiracy theory.
- EchoVoicy 5mo agoWhat is and isn't considered a conspiracy theory changes very rapidly. There are a lot of things that today are considered common sense that 10 years ago would be considered a fringe conspiracy theory.
- himata4113 5mo agoask AI with internet access disabled aka: the aggregate of the entire internet. every single ai, chinese included will call it antisemitism.
- make3 5mo ago[dead]
- colordrops 5mo agoPeople were smeared regularly for suggesting this less than a decade ago. You are being tripped up by recency bias since mainstream media started reporting on it.
- lazyasciiart 5mo agoI hate that people will take “political blackmail is real” and jump to “the moon landing wasn’t real”
- Cyph0n 5mo agoDo you blame them? If a global ring of elite pedophiles turned out to be true in spite of all the gaslighting and denial, then why couldn’t the moon landing also be a conspiracy? Keep in mind that the elite class couldn’t give two shits what the peasant class thinks. In fact, having us believe in false conspiracies helps distract the masses from the true conspiracies :)
- gosub100 5mo agoI've heard very few if any "conspiracy theorists" talk about sexual blackmail because it's boring. The appeal of a conspiracy is that it grabs people's attention. And there are certain types of attention whores who will spout theories about flat earth, or fake moon landing, because it gets them instant attention and engagement. This is what I think the GP meant, that s/he hates that these people were "right" about politicians being compromised.
- colordrops 5mo agoWhy must all conspiracy theories be bucketed together as if it's a single entity and culture. Conspiracies are real and as old as time, and treating any analysis or discussion about them as part of a greater crackpot culture just acts as cover for real ones. In fact there is evidence that the CIA is behind some of the crackpot theories to muddy the water.
- Cyph0n 5mo agoAstounding to watch the mental gymnastics at play. It’s like how Israeli lobbying orgs state that “claiming Zionist orgs control the media is antisemitism”, and then the solution is literally “we should use our contacts & supporters in the media to stop this kind of rhetoric”. Beautiful.
- dang 5mo ago"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." Also, please don't use quotes to make it look like you're quoting someone when you aren't. That's an internet snark trope, and thus breaks the "Don't be snarky" guideline too. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- vintermann 5mo agoI don't believe blackmail is the most effective thing. The problem with blackmail is that even if you do as the blackmailer says, they still have the threat hanging over you forever. That increases the risk that they do something desperate. What is effective, isn't blackmail, but complicity. Doing bad things together. Then you get a shared interest. The people Epstein had blackmail on, knew that he wouldn't use it casually, because after all there would be no way to use it without implicating himself. But if he were desperate, he might. So the victims had an interest in keeping Epstein not desperate. So it's the bad things they do together which is dangerous. Even things they do in full view of the public can work, because the threat isn't necessarily that the public finds out, it's that if one is held accountable, then all are at risk.
- gosub100 5mo agoI think what made Epstein effective was balancing the blackmail with favors for complying. If all you do is get dirt on people, eventually it will fail. But if you give them something too, they are less resentful.
- himata4113 5mo agoI think it's closer to dragging them into a conversation. Something along the lines of: "Hey I know you did X, let's talk about Y and maybe to Z since you're already in deep shit."
- an0malous 5mo agoWhy did you not believe this particular theory before? It never seemed like an outlandish idea to me at all that some US politicians could be blackmailed by foreign interests. I don’t get this blanket rejection of “conspiracy theories”, it’s like the moment you describe something as a conspiracy theory a large group of self identified intellectuals just dismiss it offhand. It doesn’t make sense as a category, of course people conspire. If I could propose a lesson to be learned, maybe stop categorizing things as “conspiracy theories” and take each theory on the merit of its evidence and how it fits the facts.
- himata4113 5mo agoIt was too "popular" of a conspiracy theory to be true, it was the cognative conclusion that was attributed to israel without any real backing behind it. I think it's telling that it took this long and this much pressure to ever consider it a "threat".