Conspiracy theories - what to do

[lizzieoak]

I’m not sure if this is a blokey thing or if the men I know are just a bit daft. I only seem to have these conversations with men, but that may be coincidence.

A number of my male friends and relatives keep getting all excited over (really stupid) conspiracy theories. Last night, for example, I’m hanging out with a good friend and he starts going on about Facebook. About how the Chinese govt, or CIA,
or Dr Evil (I was so boggled I wasn’t taking in all the details) actually invented Facebook, and they found Zuckerberg to front it as they needed a personable young person (yes, because everyone loves us Jews). They invented it so tht we’d provide them, free of charge, with all the information they need to control us down the road; our kitten photos, pictures of the kids’ school plays, our opinions on Strictly Dancing, and our holiday party invites (I may be paraphrasing ;) )

He then said “they” have “men in suits” (not sure why he thinks suits are a sign of evil, he often wears suits) monitoring our Facebook accounts.

I pointed out that if they are watching fb, it’s going to be the accounts of suspected radicals and organized crime people, and that “they” do not have the manpower to watch all the fb accounts in the world (and “they” would die of boredom if they did). I’m not sure he saw the logic there!

I’ve had a similarly stupid conversation w my ex husband years ago when I emailed him at work to tell him our baby dd had just stood up for the first time. He said the govt (his employer) was paying people to read every single incoming and outgoing email to catch people not working, but indulging in the doings of ridiculously adorable infants.

Is this anywhere near common, or do I just know plonkers? Am I somehow driving them mad? I’ve asked my friend to stop telling me his conspiracy theories as he’s making me uncomfortable (I’ve pointed out that conspiracy theorists often end up believing in the lizard people and antsemetic tropes). He stops for a while, then starts again. Claims it’s “fun” to think about.

Is it as odd as it feels to me? Are they mad? How to stop it?

Your husband may have the germ of truth in that his workplace might have filters that automatically check images or scan emails for keywords and could pick up a baby photo (though they'd need to be more draconian than average to discipline him for one incoming email)

Justanotherlurker

AIs scare the shit out of me. I firmly believe robots will take over sometime in the future.

The Basilisk! That's the one I think about from time to time.

Ex-P is into one about sutble changes to common cultural knowledge being proof that the world ended and we are living in a facsimile or some such nonsense.

Carousel

Like the Mandela Effect?

Carouselfish

Mandela Effect. It's all 'cos of the LHC. Trufax.

NotDavidTennant

Yes he's a private citizen now as he believes the limitations placed on the project he oversaw were unhelpful and that the public should know their findings. That's why he resigned.

On an unrelated the NYT's article was nicely written. Balanced and evenly written.

Look if anybody can give me another reasonable explanation as to why some people think it's Sex In The City rather than Sex And The City I would love to hear it.

It's obviously a disturbance in the space time continuum.

Furiosa

I think the point David is trying to make (and certainly the point I am trying to make) is there is nothing new in that article.

Wasn't something similar released over here not so long back?

Not to me. Maybe it's because you are a programmer and therefore know the technological limitations.

I'm sorry, but if you was of the belief before snowden that Governments where tracking your every move online then you yourself would be classed as a conspiracy theorist, I have worked in Silicon Valley for decades and the whole disparate way the web was initially set up meant that such procedures was considered impossible.

Isn't this what Google have always done anyway? I mean, they watch how we behave to optimise their search engine. It's not difficult to extrapolate from that that you could also use it to zoom in on an individual who behaves a certain way.

No google was built on indexing websites, not the user, we only started targeting the user when google got the monopoly and started the mass personal data collection.

What's happening now with big data (in general) is the next conspiracy theory, think 23 and me and stuff

Tessliketrees

I'll quote the article:

"Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena."

The real conspiracy in that article is how this billionaire, Bigelow, managed to tap his senator friend, Reid, for $22 million of public money to fund his (presumably already well funded) company to look into his pet interest of UFOs. I can well imagine why there was internal opposition to the project and a desire to keep the whole thing hushed up.

Justanotherlurker

Indeed, that is my point. I didn't know any of that you said.

I know Google watch things, I didn't know they didn't watch the user. Therefore thought I can be watched on the internet. If I am going to be watched on the internet of course I could be watched by the government.

That's my reasoning because I had no background knowledge of how it actually works.

Maybe your circle would have handed you a tinfoil hat but mine wouldn't because they are as tech savvy as me.

It is interesting how context is key.

Furiosa

I mean... that's not the Pentagon having physical evidence. That's some bloke saying he has a UFO in his shed.

NotDavidTennant

And that he is jointly funding a project with NASA?! That's potentially dodgey as fuck.

NotDavidTennant

possibly, won't rule that out but also the footage from the USAF embedded on the article I posted.

Could be fuckery, could be real. The point is we don't know but this article is spooky and straight out unprecedented.

That's the one!

Roko's Basilisk though! Anyone?

Tessliketrees

I mean... that's not the Pentagon having physical evidence. That's some bloke saying he has a UFO in his shed.

I'll accept that but the tone of the the NYT article is very balanced. I'm going with UAP are real and world governments know they're real but don't know what they are.

Carousel

I'd never heard of it, but I'm having a delve around now... Thank you!

Tesslikestrees
Justanotherlurker

Yes I agree with Tess here - those of us who are not tech savvy would have assumed that government / google / etc can watch us online precisely because we don’t understand the ins and outs of how it works etc, therefore our peers would not have labelled us conspiracy theorists
Turns out we are accidentally right 😂

Great thread. I read some of the theories about 9/11, it is quite easy to get sucked in when you are only reading one side. There was a (BBC? not Youtube anyway!)TV documentary 4/5? years ago which debunked it. Can't remember details of the conspiracy theories but part of it was to do with liquid seen falling outside one of the towers, and why it/they collapsed so quickly. In the documentary 2 people in different countries, one was a metallurgist & one some type of specialist engineer both came up with the same theory. The aircraft body being aluminium melted in the heat of the fire, so the liquid was molten aluminium, fumes from that is highly explosive combined with water, which came from the sprinkler system. It was also explained that the experts who produced a report didn't have the type of knowledge to realise this (also one of the group of CTs with a website were mainly architects without the metallurgical expertise).

I have a wonderful friend who I love dearly. She was a very rational lefty woman, and then suddenly out of nowhere she became obsessed with conspiracy theories (chemtrails, smart meters, etc etc) and has cut herself off from everyone who's not overly involved in this stuff. I miss her terribly and worry about her. I hope she comes through it.

I really struggle to believe that Princess Diana's death was an accident.

I agree about Diana, don't think the truth will ever come out about that as it hasn't by now, with the numerous enquiries.

Maybe your circle would have handed you a tinfoil hat but mine wouldn't because they are as tech savvy as me.

Yeah OK, I haven't honestly thought about it on those terms before if I am being honest, I think my point is that there is a blurry line between skeptical and full blown flat earther.

As for the whole governments storing everything you ever do online and some smart tv's phones etc still recording you when it was turned off was firmly on the side of flat earther side of the coin before the whistleblowers.

I knew what we was doing over 10 years ago with regards to targeted ads and recently with geo location and dna testing stuff.

I think I'm struggling to put my point across but, the people who do generally write of conspiracy theorists outright are usually the first to just shrug their shoulders when revelations come about (ifysim)

As an example, back to the OP, its not a blokey thing in my opinion, nor is it an education level, the "men in suits" running the world has many connotations with skeptical stance of bilderberg to the outlandish jews/lizard people running the planet.

Facebook was initially set up as a closed network but he hasn't become a billionaire by just pushing targeted ads onto people, just the same as google, it's the same as on MN, you are the product, you are just unaware as to how, and its not necessarily targeting you it's adding to the Big Data network of the generation below you, depending how much you spill on line that is.

Some of them are utterly ridiculous, but some..well I can believe there could maybe be some truth in them. Often the ridiculous ones and possibly possible ones are on the same topic.

For example its obviously ridiculous that 9/11 did not happen, false videos of planes and such...

But I find it possibly believable that the American government knew about the attacks and let them happen.

That kind of thing.