To feel intimidated by conspiracy theorists

[famousforwrongreason]

I have a lot of friends who seem to have moved into plandemic territory, masks are evil etc. Some people are who I'd least expect to have these beliefs, rational people.
They have linked covid to 5g and are now crusading for the save our children campaign saying anyone who doesn't join them is complicit in child abuse and people trafficking.
They literally say this.
this is not even one group of friends, but disparate unconnected from each other.
I feel like they're dropping like flies.
I have every reason to believe that these campaigns have right wing connections, many of them are using American spelling for things which are also being shared by qanon people and there is some crossover.
I am not keen on our government, not overly happy with masks but also not overly bothered, I'll do what I can to help get things back to normal, maybe I'm being naive there
I just want to rant really, I keep inadvertently insulting people when I bring it up irl and each time a new person tells me their thoughts on it all I just become more alarmed!
I would also do anything I can to protect children, I just feel that linking up with these militant groups is not the only way.

Plus the friends who are heavily involved seem to have become friends with some really heavy and sinister Tommy robinson types.
I feel worried about the mass hysteria, but also sad I'm losing friends and worried about where this will end.
Is anyone experiencing this?
Aibu to feel this is slightly sinister?

And what makes you say that?

What is a conspiracy theory? Is it a different version of events from what we are told in the media or via following politics etc? Taking this topic aside. (Honest question, not being goady.) For example' The Madeline mccan story. Were all the people who thought/think her parents were involved in killing her, 'conspiracy theorists'? Or the people who thought/think 911 was caused by US goverment?... Because I have seen this said before A lot. If you disbelieve something that you are told on a mass scale, why are both parties not conspiracy theorists? .. Or does it work by what percentage of people lean a certain way?

I suppose technically two people covering up a murder are conspiring, but generally a conspiracy theory refers to a whole load of networked people involved in the conspiracy.

9/11 being carried out by the government would definitely be classed as a conspiracy because huge numbers of people would be required to cover up the evidence.

I'd consider a conspiracy to be a largely inplausible/unlikely scenario built to gain enough support to further or justify a particular viewpoint/cause which would otherwise be dismissed in general society.

I think, if i had to define it, it would be along those lines. Good question though, made me think about it a bit.

The problem is when there is SOME truth in the theory. Years ago, as part of a paper I was writing, I did some research into a conspiracy theory popular at the time. This was in order to discount the theory to provide balance to my research. It was a minor, but important, part of my work.

One of the sources of material I found was not in the university library, but in a public library in north London. This book provided evidence that in fact, the conspiracy theory was true. It scared the shit out of me. So much so, that I took it to my supervisor who told me very firmly to leave it alone and choose a new subject for my paper.

I have never spoken about it as I don't generally believe in rubbish conspiracy theories and don't want to be regarded as an idiot.

So was it partly true or fully true? And what was the evidence?

Ah, because I have seen things such as 'aliens existing' or 'flat earth' etc, being called conspriacy theorys, I assumed it was the 'unpopular view'! I feel a bit silly saying it now but, I never clicked that people assuming that a theory of people conspiring together = conspiracy theorist! I have even heard people speculating on ancient eygption history as conspiracy theory's' even though know one really knows, I personally want a new definition for them lol

@housemdwaswrong It was strong evidence of truth, yes. But just because that particular theory is probably true, that does not mean that every other ridiculous theory spouted by the bored, stoned and attention-seeking is true also. And that's the problem.

Interesting. Its usually the dact that no evidence can be provided, short of youtube clips, comments by already discredited 'professionals'and the other beliefs of the people who buy into that are the red flags.

Also, if they don't discuss, just parrot out party lines.

That's my take. If referenced books, with eyewitness or whistle-blower accounts, doxuments pertaining to it etcwhich can be verified, I'd look again. Spare me the YouTube channels though :/

Has there ever been a time where a conspiracy theory becomes a fact? Or for example.. If covid turned out to be "fake" or whatever CTs say, would the conspiracy theorists become sane, and go on as usual? If you live in an massively religious country that most people believes in a 'god' of some kind, are you a conspiracy theorist for seeing it as BS? .... (I apologise for posting these questions here, I know its not to do with OP)

Mk ultra was once a conspiracy which was proven to be true when documents were made public. There are actually quite a few if you look. Files became declassified and the truth revealed.

Generally people like conspiracy theories because they are covered up.

It is public knowledge that Epstein was trafficking minors and that high profile people were involved. Yet there isn’t a great deal of interest in it from conspiracy theorists. They would rather focus on an alternate conspiracy involving the trafficking of minors involving high profile people.

It not being public knowledge is the core appeal to conspiracy theorists. If Tom Hanks or whoever really did turn out to be a sex predator they would just move on to speculating about someone else. There’s no satisfaction for them in discussing something everyone else knows.

Where the 9/11 conspiracy theory is concerned, I first heard it from my uncle (he died some years ago). He previously had an important role in the UN, so I can't just dismiss it as a load of rubbish. Then I heard it again from an elderly conservative evangelical pastor, who is an old family friend. My uncle had no respect for any organised religion, and yet they both believed that 9/11 was staged by the US government.

I don't know what to believe about this. I don't want to believe that the US government or the CIA would have been so cold-blooded as to deliberately sacrifice the lives of thousands of people. But because of who I heard it from, I can't just dismiss it as bollocks.

I've also heard it suggested that 7/7 was staged as well. Though the pandemonium afterwards, with police officers shooting dead an innocent man because of mistaken identity makes me think that theory was indeed bollocks.

I'd consider a conspiracy to be a largely inplausible/unlikely scenario built to gain enough support to further or justify a particular viewpoint/cause which would otherwise be dismissed in general society.

But that would mean that the many people convicted in British courts of 'conspiracy to commit murder/fraud/other crime' were in fact themselves the innocent victims of crazy conspiracy-theorist police/judges/lawyers. If there's never any rational or true case of a conspiracy having happened.

Unless we rule that anybody in any official capacity is by definition excluded from any suspicion of being involved in conspiracies. What would then happen if, say, David Icke and Alex Jones (not the Welsh woman from The One Show!) formed a party, garnered a lot of support and actually managed to get elected to some level of officialdom? Would that then automatically mean that everything they ever said would be considered to be true - and then anybody disbelieving them was a ridiculous conspiracy theorist?

In fact, we don't even need to consider that unlikely scenario. Let's just look at Donald Trump: hundreds of millions of people worldwide doubt the truth ofeverything a huge amount of the things he states as fact. That's an awful lot of conspiracy theorists....

It is public knowledge that Epstein was trafficking minors and that high profile people were involved. Yet there isn’t a great deal of interest in it from conspiracy theorists.

Maybe not the weed-smoking yogic-flying sort, but there's been a huge amount of interest and discussion in this case worldwide amongst those who like to consider themselves critical thinkers and examine the known facts, theories and circumstantial evidence for themselves with an open mind.

It hasn't always been public knowledge. As has been stated, there are things that start off as conspiracy theories and later (sometimes at great personal cost to those exposing them) end up as, at worst, public knowledge and, at best, declassified, officially confirmed fact.

Take Operation Paperclip for just one example.

Then why are so many conspiracy theorists doing pizzagate/wayfair/QAnon when there is a genuine conspiracy in Epstein to demand justice over?

I don't want to believe that the US government or the CIA would have been so cold-blooded as to deliberately sacrifice the lives of thousands of people.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Then why are so many conspiracy theorists doing pizzagate/wayfair/QAnon when there is a genuine conspiracy in Epstein to demand justice over?

There are both - some are focusing on one of them, some on the other and probably a lot are considering both. As I mentioned before, for all we know, the way out ones could even have been deliberately placed there/publicised to distract from and discredit the Epstein one.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Point, but that was in the context of attempting to end the war, so there was a genuine military reason for the actions, like the carpet bombing of Germany. (I'm not saying that those actions weren't immoral, though.)

Staging 9/11 would have been an entirely cold-blooded act, and that's why I hate to think it was really the case. At the same time, it's one conspiracy theory that might be true.

Staging 9/11 would have been an entirely cold-blooded act, and that's why I hate to think it was really the case. At the same time, it's one conspiracy theory that might be true.

9/11 was undeniably and without controversy an evil and cold-blooded act. It's just a case of where the evil people who masterminded it happened to be based.

FWIW, Robin Cook had been high up in UK government before he claimed that there was no such group as Al Quaeda, so it would have been very interesting to hear more of his thoughts and reasoning behind that statement, but sadly we're unable to probe him further on the matter now, as he tragically died soon afterwards.

Of course it was, but the reasons why Islamist terrorists commit such atrocities are well known. The reason why the US government would have done that would probably have been to sucker the west into a war with Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. (That was my uncle's explanation.) So for entirely cynical reasons.

If that was the case, well it backfired big time, as whatever wrongs Saddam was guilty of (and there were many), he kept extreme Islamists at bay. The situation is far worse now. You could say that they're responsible for the rise of ISIS.

Robin Cook may have been right, I think. I've always thought that the assassination of Osama Bin Laden was done at a very convenient moment, just when Obama was about to run for a second term. He wasn't even in hiding, so they must have known where he was for a very long time.

There was also a suggestion - I don't know if it was true or not - that Saddam was wanting/trying to change the currency for Iraqi oil to be traded in Euros rather than USD.

There was a lot of talk that Bin laden actually died in 2001, soon after 9/11. He was reportedly a very ill man, on kidney dialysis and living in a cave, and some believe that his well-publicised assassination/execution was pure invented theatre designed to bolster public opinion for Obama. I don't know at all, but it would have been quite a trophy if they'd brought his dead body back to parade through Washington rather than just chucking it in the sea.

‘As I mentioned before, for all we know, the way out ones could even have been deliberately placed there/publicised to distract from and discredit the Epstein one.‘

That is one conspiracy I can believe in - that QAnon is an invention to prevent proper scrutiny of Epstein.

@Mittens030869 Did your relatives say why and how they believe 9/11 was a conspiracy?