Another conspiracy theorist has been successfully sued.

@wastingtimeonhere

The guy I know who is into all manner of 'theories' (he tells everyone it's facts).. spends every available minute 'researching', he quotes, laws, treaties, the 'English constitution', although a lot seems to be American in origins etc..Although

Yep. It helps to have a lot of time on your hands to be a conspiracy theorist. I just wouldn’t have the time or energy for all this YouTube, sorry “research”.

When it’s happened to people I have known (two friends) it’s been triggered by something: the breakdown of a relationship in one case and a financial crisis in the other.

I think it’s when people lose their moral and intellectual bearings and seek something to fill the vacuum.

Its easy to put it down to stupidity but I think the people who get really into conspiracy are rarely stupid, often they have the potential to be quite intelligent but their curiosity has become warped by some sort of mental distress.

@joinbyog
I think you have a point, we know stuff does get hidden/ lies/ scandals. Many theories have a grain of truth that gets extrapolated.

No I'm not and I haven't noticed a plethora of conspiracy theories on MN. Perhaps there's a forum within the forum🤔

The guy I know who is into all manner of 'theories' (he tells everyone it's facts).. spends every available minute 'researching', he quotes, laws, treaties, the 'English constitution', although a lot seems to be American in origins etc..Although not educated, he's not stupid but he has deep distrust of authority, mainstream and conventional beliefs/ knowledge and an encyclopedic memory to all these theories. He seems to have got sucked in during covid, and it's ballooned. Currently, it's weather manipulation and chemtrails, which he believes is routine, and all our weather is engineered. Oh, and Trump, who is the saviour of the world.

Take a group of folk some of whom want a diamond (real or not) some of whom had a real diamond (but no-one believed them) some of whom have real diamonds, they may have hidden or stolen from the two former groups.

Where better to hide those real diamonds than among a multitude of fake diamonds?

Each time someone says there’s a real diamond in there it’s real easy to pick up a fake diamond and prove it’s fake, and then ridicule and discredit folks from either of the two first groups.

Eventually most will get fed up of diamond hunting and diamond hunters, of doing due diligence, of paying for investigating each ‘diamond’ and so next time someone says this one is real, folks just shrug and say ‘uhh huh sure it is son’.

I think people can be so desperate for something that they suspend disbelief, especially with so much make-believe being made possible online and even in real life.

I also think a whole lot of disinformation and seriously dumb CT make for very good cover for real scandals.

We have a lot of information and disinformation, CT’s and real scandals, victims and greedy clout/money chasers.

No wonder, as poster on another thread said, the world is an utter shambles right now.

Are you new on here? People believe insane stuff all the time hopefully the gullible are less likely to be in positions to influence others, well hopefully anyway

As far as I know, 'deep state' is a state within a state. Truss said that she had lost her job because of the deep state.

I agree generally about education and lack of critical analysis, but deep state is mentioned all over the place, it isn't just Trump. I have heard EU leaders talk about it in interviews. It is basically the notion that extremely wealthy and powerful individuals are able to influence government policy from behind the scenes. This is widely accepted as having happened for many decades. In relation to the US I think it is also to do with influences on or by the CIA not being subject to enough scrutiny? And this sort of things gets lumped into the same concept, or something. I might be wrong though.

It’s not always stupid people though. An old friend has property gone down this rabbit hole: vaccines, chemtrails, the lot.

She is degree educated, worked in national newspapers. She is clearly gullible but not uneducated.

My thesis is that most of the time it’s linked to mental illness and low self esteem. I think in most cases people know deep down that it’s a load of shit but it’s tied into their identity as a rebellious outsider who doesn’t swallow the mainstream narrative bla bla.

A university ‘friend’ thought the 7/7 bombings were a hoax and the victims were just actors, the bus, trains etc were just props borrowed from a film set. A flatmates older brother had suffered life changing injuries, apparently this was just stage makeup.

He also claimed anyone who had a covid vaccine would die within 18 months, he stayed oddly silent in the matter when people started messaging him to say they had hit 19 months and were very much alive.

He used to make records of himself coverting people to believe the same conspiracy theories, but the people were just him answering back in another voice. He used to send us both the recordings and scripts and ask for feedback. He got this recording ‘tip’ from a friend who was removed from the uni for extreme stalking of another student, said stalker made the same sort of recordings but he would pretend to be his victim answering back. So I imagine a large issue is that conspiracy theorists often socialise with people like them, so in their circle it is normal behaviour.

The former as I don't think the general population, as a whole, have ever been adept at assessing the motives of the media we consume but, the advent of the internet and rise unregulated social media has supercharged the impact.

In years gone by people could only be manipulated by a limited number of media outlets or through direct interaction. Now it's as easy as drawing breath to find an echo chamber that supports whatever view it is you want to believe.

I am all for these thick, objectionable gobshites being hit where it hurts.

Hopefully.

The Obama thing is weird but isn't unusual for famous women. Brigitte Macron sued over allegations that she was born male. However, it's true that black women are often accused of being 'masculine'.

As for flat earth theory, people can get very defensive about it because it's based on faith not evidence. I think for some it's similar to religion.

Hopefully it'll be a while before people start getting sued for not seeing the point of the EU.

Some clown tweeted that they believe planes are powered by demonic technologies and we aren't actually flying anywhere but being vaporated I guess from place to place.

I guess it's easier to believe Boeing is run by actual demons than trying to work through Bernoulli's equation.

It is a way to exert narcissism and control.
I lost a thirty year old close friendship due to my ex friend ( a special needs TA) due to my refusing to countenance that 1) Michelle Obama is a man ( this upset me as myself and ex friend are both Black and I have yet to see this conspiracy theory put out there not rooted in the notion that Black women " aren't quite women).

2. The Earth is flat. I asked for this to be explained to me considering that a view of a horizon from an elevaton is curved and the photos of the Earth from space and even if Earth was a" flat mass into infinity", the actual planet has hills, mountains, valleys, volcanoes and is not flat. The notion of Earth beng flat has never made sense and the fact that it once did is the quirk.
   She nearly wanted to fight me.

3. Covid and Covid vaccine conspiracy theories.

God knows what she believes now. It's been three and a half years of ex friendship.

Remember, the truth is out there... or maybe it’s just in a good punchline!

The internet has made a great difference. In days of yore there would be people coming out with utter tripe in pubs, family gatherings and workplaces and other people would laugh at them, tell them to pipe down and talk over them, so they wouldn't have an audience. Nowadays they go online instead and easily find similar nutters all over the world who all egg each other on. They type in their batshit theories and their posts stay there waiting for others to read them and add their own ideas. By the time people with common sense and a sense of proportion see their nonsense it's too late. Same sort of mechanism as cults - brainwashing? Very difficult to de-programme them, I would imagine.

Thank you for correcting my spelling.

The point is that there is so much information available that it's pretty easy to check your facts.

I think the word is unquestioningly, but the impression I get from the conspiracy theorists I have known is that they like to feel special and cleverer than everyone else.

There's also so much bullshit being spread these days that it's sometimes hard to know what to believe.

Yes - it seems like a new phenomenon due to our exposure and awareness of it but there have been conspiracies throughout most of human history. In the last century there was 9/11, the satanic panic, chemtrails, assassination of JFK, the moon landing, death of Marilyn Monroe, the illuminati to name just a few. Further back in history the European witch trials, the princes in the tower and even in Roman times there was a conspiracy Nero hadn’t died by suicide but instead faked his death.

We live in a time of so much more information and yet humans have not kept up by developing sufficient critical thinking skills. Ultimately a shared belief creates community and connection whether that’s through faith, religion or conspiracy. If someone feels better for believing something that can’t be substantiated by empirical evidence then that’s their choice.

Because they have no idea who to trust.

Also, I'm not sure how many people do genuinely believe some of the more far out claims, they're more identifying with anti establishment narratives, if that makes any sense.

Actually that’s an interesting reply as conspiracy theorists think they have insider knowledge and are “awake” to evils of the world that non-CTs can’t see.

I love a good conspiracy theory, but there are some people who believe everything they read without needing any evidence and take it to the very extreme degree.
Some conspiracies are found to be true though, so I suppose “truthers” will just keep on truthing.

Good that there is some justice though.