Conspiracy lunatic thread - people who believe in absurd nonsense are dangerous

Rhinox said:

Hey, you leave Nessie and Ogopogo out of this.

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I did. I said "dinosaurs and pterosaurs", not plesiosaurs.

I actually meant more like Mkole Mbembe and Ropen.
And that time Matt "If African-Americans Evolved Into Other Americans, Why Are There Still African-Americans?" Powell said that Civil War soldiers killed a pterodactyl.

Creationists are also generally more likely to accept claims of lake monsters being prehistoric animals than the average person too (they seem to have some bizarre notion that finding a living example of an animal only known from fossils would somehow invalidate the ages of the fossil ones), but they're not really the primary people responsible for inventing and promoting those the way they are with most of the dinosaur/pterosaur cryptids.

NovaSaber said:

The dumbest ones even claim dinosaurs and pterosaurs survived into modern times.

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They're mostly in Congress now.

The creationists or the dinosaurs?

NovaSaber said:

The creationists or the dinosaurs?

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Yes.

i like to think cryptids exist, but i doubt any of the supposed non-avian dinosaur cryptids exist. if the "pterosaur" cryptids exist, they're more likely to be birds or bats of either known or unknown species. i wouldn't be surprised if there's some really big bats we haven't discovered yet

i think cryptids are either undiscovered but otherwise mundane animals, misidentified known animals, or (in cases of things that are sufficiently weird/inexplicable enough) either completely made-up, or maybe actual supernatural beings. like, i think that some creatures native americans/first nations people believe in are possibly real, and i will not say the names of these creatures, mainly because native americans don't want their names to be said, but also because saying their names attracts their attention.

it should also say something that i'm open to supernatural things being real, but i find any conspiracy theory more convoluted than "the government has knowledge about UFOs and is covering it up" (either to keep people from panicking about aliens which may or may not exist, or to keep any top secret aircraft/spacecraft they're developing from becoming known), "there was more than one shooter assassinating jfk," "oil companies knew about climate change and instead of addressing it decided to spread lies about it not being real bc profits matter more to the greedy sociopaths running big oil than peoples' lives do" or "there is a concerted effort by fascist christians to subvert democracy and install a theocratic dictatorship with the explicit goal of murdering all my friends."

and the last two aren't even theories, they're just facts.

The degree to which known things are misidentified is easy to underestimate. Mothman was a barn owl, most alleged sea monster corpses are either whale blubber or decomposing basking sharks, the International Space Station and the planet Venus are both commonly reported as UFOs, etc.
Some alleged yeti fur was genetically analyzed and it was from a bear; that doesn't prove all yeti sightings were bears, but it makes it more likely than an undiscovered ape.

FB friend:

People have this weird confidence that things can't go TOO far wrong, because ... well, they just can't.

Crazy people trying to overthrow the government and replace democracy with one-party rule? Let's make jokes about it on TV, but ... like, it would never actually happen dude, so don't worry too much about it.

Climate change killing millions through drought and famine, then creating waves of climate refugees? Nah, that sounds too extreme, and only extremists believe in extreme things. We'll figure it out.

Wealth inequality rising until we return to medieval feudalism? Nah dude, capitalism's been good to us in the past, so I'm sure it will find a way to be good to us in the future.

The world's two superpowers are engaging in dangerous brinksmanship? Nah, it won't get out of control. World leaders are too smart to let things get out of control.

Not every doom-and-gloom scenario comes to pass, but this casual confidence exuded by most people seems almost quasi-religious, as if they believe there are higher powers which just won't let the Really Bad Things happen.

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Pathological optimism can be just as dangerous as pathological pessimism, essentially.

There's also the fact that many of the things people are refusing to acknowledge are significantly more complex and involved than they believe it is. Climate change is literally unprecedented: we don't know the outcome because we've never seen it before. We never had nuclear war, but not because it couldn't happen: but because the massive involvement of the human element deliberately prevented it, and there were a very ridiculous number of close calls. Capitalism is changing so effectively slowly that if you aren't paying attention: it's the lobster in the boiling pot paradox.

People are either too busy dealing with the problems they face TODAY to worry about a "tomorrow problem" or they're too stupid to parse the possibilities.

Some uplifting news to start the weekend:

Took long enough.

Assuming Jones does an 'emergency broadcast' on Saturday to tell his listeners that either everything's fine or it's the end of the world, Monday's episode of the Knowledge Fight podcast is going to be fun.

KidTDragon said:

Some uplifting news to start the weekend:

Alex Jones ordered to liquidate assets to pay for Sandy Hook conspiracy suit

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones owes $1.5 billion for his false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.

www.cbsnews.com

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I still think he should have forfeited his right to even have a podcast anymore, freedom of the press be damned, but being forced to sell off his studio and equipment will do a lot to kill his platform. Hopefully he also has to sell his home and ends up freezing to death under a bridge somewhere.

I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up partnering with some other right-wing outfit who gives him everything he needs to continue his grift.

Possibly, but given his record of being sued for eyewatering amounts of money, he's going to have to hunt for someone exceptionally stupid.

abates said:

Possibly, but given his record of being sued for eyewatering amounts of money, he's going to have to hunt for someone exceptionally stupid.

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Gee, if only there was an ENTIRE POLITICAL PARTY FULL OF THEM. . . . .

Seriously, there are any number of right wing agencies, papers, et al that would love the Infowars name and Alex Jones on the mic. Hell, I believe the Epoch Times is currently looking for a hook that isn't intimately linked to another country's disinformation agency.

I'm all for alex jones finding gainful employment. Because the more he earns, the more he pays off his 1.5 billion in debt to the peoples whose lives he ruined. I hope he likes earning minimum wage for the rest of forever.

The US government has certainly been involved in a lot of real conspiracies, including some to spread conspiracy theories itself, like in this case:

Makes me wonder why so many people go to the trouble of making conspiracy theories about things that probably didn't happen.

I'd say "Because the real conspiracies aren't the ones that serve their narrative," but left-wing conspiracy theories do also exist. I can only think of two off the top of my head and they haven't been relevant in over a decade, but they exist.

And more disturbingly, right-wing conspiracy theories like "Jews run everything" have started being adopted by the far left.