To think that conspiracy theorists are everywhere

This is one of the best explanations I've seen. Thank you. 👏👏

In my experience, that was the exception rather than the rule, or at least it was in the beginning. The vitriol from the sceptics side came in response to the frankly vile abuse toward anyone who remotely questioned anything.

During the pandemic, I literally had someone say they hoped I'd die because our area had suddenly gone into Tier 4 and I wanted to go to my regular supermarket that was in Tier 3! Sorry, but you don't get to be that abusive and not expect the same back!

If people can be that nasty about something so trivial, imagine what it was like for anyone questioning the jabs. MN in particular was wild!

I mean, when people are talking about conspiracies in the context of the pandemic and what a lot of new information means for those conspiracies, it depends what conspiracy you subscribe to.

Did COVID escape from a lab or didn't it? We might never know because it could be in certain parties interests to deflect onto other narratives. If that's the case, it would require a conspiracy to make that happen.

Were the jabs less safe than we believed and have they caused harm? Probably. There are risks with any medication and never in human history have so many people been vaccinated at the same time so we're obviously going to be seeing those side-effects in much greater numbers all at the same time. Did drug companies try to minimise or hide facts? Did governments enact the right policies? Did they do more harm than good? Again, we may never know because people in power will inevitably manoeuvre to protect themselves and again, it would need some level of conspiracy to achieve that. Probably multiple conspiracies at different levels which could be coordinated or connected but maybe not.

For me, that level of questioning is in the realms of healthy and balanced, and I wouldn't label people who believe there's something to uncover beneath those questions as "conspiracy theorists". It's when people try to connect the totality of what happened, add some wild, unsubstantiated links and suddenly COVID was all a planned, coordinated global plot to assert control and to inject things into the worlds population to either kill us off and reset society or install technology so we can be controlled by our new overlords. COVID is the perfect example but the same applies across the board to other "theories", most of which completely contradict each other depending on which version you're hearing.

Like I said upthread, there will always be the flat-earthers etc. I think it's widely agreed that those people are conspiracy theorists and will always be conspiracy theorists.
But that's not what we're talking about here. The topics OP cited aren't remotely conspiracy theories, they are facts or, as someone else on here so eloquently put it, 'inconvenient truths'.

Doesn't make someone a conspiracy theorist for daring to ask questions. This rhetoric is what we need to get away from.

The thing is sometimes they are right. When COVID first kicked off it was the CT who said that the virus escaped from a lab. Then guess what? Many people have been injured by the vaccine. Speaking as someone who is fully jabbed I am starting to wonder about the safety aspects. I think that people need to keep an open mind.

When I was looking for people who opposed lockdowns as I do, I joined a resistance group. But as soon as I did, I was shocked at the pure vitriol against those who had taken the jabs in good faith, and I very nearly left the group on the spot. The irony was that they used almost identical language to those on the other side:

"Look at all those stupid lemmings queueing up for the jab, they're all going to die, it's very sad."
versus
"Look at all those selfish refuseniks, they're going to prolong lockdowns, they're going to kill granny, and they're going to die, it's very sad."

For what it's worth here's my take on it from what I've experienced in the last few years.

The worlds is becoming a more complex and troubled place. The more prevalent the internet has become, the more people are able to see this. Mental health and anxiety are skyrocketing and people are desperate to make sense out of chaos, even when that's not realistic.

Conspiracy theories take all of that chaos and wrap it up in a neat little bow with enough grains of truth and (on the surface) logic that it's comforting. There is absolutely corruption in the world, there are absolutely conspiracies happening in different places and for different reasons. Power is being abused all over the world. I think it's good to question and to look beneath the surface. My problem is that when some people try to find answers, they end up going down rabbit holes into communities that try and connect all of this into absolutely wild, vague and mostly contradictory wider conspiracies and suddenly people who were asking rational, valid questions are now zombies, mattering talking vaguely about "them".

Once people get to that point, their standards of evidence get progressively worse. Where they would have been doing real research on individual topics, now they're directing me to a blog or a video of a rant by one of their compatriots as "proof" that blood drinking monsters are secretly coordinating every element of day to day life.

My Aunt is fully down he rabbit hole. She leaned over the table at lunch one day and asked me quietly whether I knew that "they" were softening children up by normalising paedophilia. She showed me a post which had a snippet of this picture book that was allegedly being given out in UK schools today. The post showed two pages which were along the lines of "uncle tommy's gets in into little Timmy's bed at night" (can't remember the exact words) with cartoons to illustrate. No other context. I Google'd some of the text when I got home and found the whole book eventually. It tells the story of a kid from an unhappy home who's parents fight a lot. His uncle molests him when he comes to visit and he grows up to be gay. He visits a doctor who cures him because being gay isn't a thing. It's a response of a child looking for the love he didn't get from his father. Paedophilia is only a sub-plot and it's actually a wildly anti-gay piece of work by some guy in the USA in the early 90's. Yet my Aunt sees this post with 2 pages out of context and gives it credibility because it comes from her new community who "see the truth" like she does. She also sold her flat and, for a while, tried to buy a plot of land up north that she could retreat to when "they flip the switch".

Believe in conspiracies by all means. They do happen. But for fuck sake, don't surrender your own ability to reason and hand it over to others.

But there are plenty of people that believe things that have also been disproved e.g. flat-earthers, that insist on conspiracy theories that simply not only don't exist, but can't exist. And while many are harmless, those that lead to e.g. people avoiding medical treatment, can be downright dangerous.

I find conspiracy theories interesting. Just to hear others views on things. The majority I don't agree with, but there are some things that really make me think. The one event I'm not fully on board with (no pun intended at all!!!) is 9/11. The twin towers bit yes, it's the pentagon bit I find odd. Only 1 piece of video evidence for that whole important building? And it's not a building in the middle of nowhere. No other video evidence at all? The plane would have had to fly from such a distance low to the ground. Doesn't sit right with me. But always happy to be proven wrong!!

CTs weren't just warning of caution around potential side effects from a new vaccine, though. That would have been perfectly reasonable. They were claiming the government was deliverately trying to kill us off via the vaccines and that we'd all be dead within 18 months. Many are still attributing every sudden death to the covid jab, and claiming that sudden deaths, particularly those from heart issues, didn't happen before the covid jab, which is nonsense. When my friend was in hospital and almost died from covid, she had lunatics posting on her Facebook page telling her it was the jab that had made her ill - she hadn't had the jab! The sudden death of a young actor announced in the media had them all shouting about the covid jab until it turned out he'd taken his own life. When they are proven wrong about something, they never acknowledge it, just move on to the next conspiracy.

Another friend who posts non stop conspiracies was thrilled to see the northern lights the other day. She posted pictures saying she'd always wanted to see them, her number one bucket list item, a lifelong dream come true. Her CT friends instantly piped up telling her they weren't real, that it was a test by HAARP, only an idiot would think they were the northern lights, etc. Her response was interesting; she was clearly torn, knowing what she'd seen, but unable to turn down a good conspiracy. She deleted her pictures. Sad really.

Also, you're always going to need those alternative thinkers and those voices of dissent. Otherwise you just have a load of people all thinking exactly the same - which is dangerous and more open to manipulation and abuse in the wrong, powerful hands, IMO.

To be fair though I should imagine that if there were such a term as “conspiracy theorist” many years ago, it would have been used on those that said the the earth was round. There are a number of other so called “conspiracies” that have been shown to be anything but.

Oh totally - I saw that too.

Ironically, though, all that reaction did was cause the hesitant to harden their resolve and not take it.

We used to trust our politicians and the media to tell us the truth.

Now that that trust has been irretrievably broken, it is no longer possible to have one, universally accepted baseline of truth.

Facts remain facts. For example: the earth is round, or you cannot change biological sex. But despite this, you can choose to believe whatever feels true to you and you will be able to find a corner of the internet with other people to reinforce that belief. Then that becomes the framework of 'truth' from which you operate.

You could argue that it doesn't really matter. Until those beliefs start encroaching on the rights and freedoms of other people- eg: allowing men into women's sports or banning abortion because of religion.

Right? But that 'theory' was quickly disproved once people started using them. Obviously.

People are allowed to hold one view of a new invention - then change their mind or affirm their belief once sufficient time has past. I'd say that's perfectly normal human behaviour - not a conspiracy theory.

You might want to look into why you're so triggered by others having a different opinion to you.

Conspiracy theories, belief-systems, alternative views - all flourish in an information vacuum.

Societies with few trusted sources of fact-based, scientifically-proven information are vulnerable to this.

Everyone has their own disparate sources - many of which have zero integrity and dubious motivations to influence people for various goals (ideology, financial, political gain)

We need a new enlightenment - and an information revolution where the majority of people turn to the same trusted, credible, verified, sources of information.

I was appalled at the vitriol directed at anyone who expressed vaccine hesitancy on here, they were instantly labelled an anti vaxxer conspiracy theorists. People seemed to lose their minds.

I was fully vaccinated after weighing up my risk factors for serious illness from COVID vs the possibility of an adverse vaccine reaction but if I had been 20 I might have felt quite differently.

So a critical thinker is a conspiracy theorist? Right... 🙄

If anything your response has perfectly highlighted how people are so quick to shout down any sentiment that even vaguely challenges the status quo.

You know it's attitudes like yours that give rise to conspiracy theories/ists, right?

When trains came in, there was a theory people would suffocate on them because they’d be unable to breathe due to moving so quickly.

BINGO!! OP, you have one in the first 3 replies!! Your “1 in 3 chance” theory has been confirmed by experiment!

100% this! 👏👏

Unfortunately, there are now more of them because of the stance taken regarding the Covid vax - a jab which there WAS no long-term data for as it hadn't been around long term.

This made it a very different beast to the innoculations that had been around for decades. But because people didn't trust what the govt, health officials were saying about this jab, they then begun to question ALL jabs. And I can't honestly say I blame them.

And the fact people can label the Covid-vaccine injured/compensated 'anti-vaxxers' is a whole new level of stupid!

Mate - if only you knew about the gerbils. I could tell you but I'd have to put you in a laboratory and research you.

The trouble with it is that so many people all believe different things, and what they believe changes like the wind. They believe it came from a 5g tower one minute and in the next breath it’s not even real and all made up. One minute the elites are trying to kill the general population for population control, the next it’s to do with them not wanting to kill us but control us with microchips.

Nobody knows what the fuck they believe because they amalgamate bits and pieces of different stories and info to make up a complete bullshit story that makes some kind of sense to them in their head, then when that gets challenged, it makes them think ‘’hmmm’ so they move the goal posts a bit while still maintaining their belief that ‘something is going on’ because admitting their beliefs are silly hurts their ego.

Of course, all the lies and incompetence of the government hasn’t helped and has harmed the trust, but I do find it funny how CT’s don’t see how daft they are and notice the flaws in their own cognition. Facts follow consistent patterns.

Replace "conspiracy theorist" with "critical thinker" then you may enjoy their enlightening conversations.