What is it with men and conspiracy theories 🙄

[Titicacacandle]

Online dating and it seems the only men I seem to be attracted to seem to have so many issues that come up after a few chats!

Latest one, and not uncommon by a long shot, has told me that he doesn't pay his water bill because water is free from the sky and the water companies are poisoning us (but doesn't have a distiller so drinks out of plastic bottles and that can cause cancer if all your drinks are from plastic), doesn't pay council tax, doesn't work because he's awake and it's part of the matrix, 5g is going to fuck us all up and our cows are now being injected by another Bill Gates vaccine. I asked him what he did with his day if he doesn't work and he spends his days researching on what is going wrong in the world in the fight against good and evil.. oh and the huge American pedophile rings and social workers trafficking kids. I am a bloody SW, no we don't want your kids, caseloads are overwhelmed enough as it is thanks.

I just think it's sad that his life has become this. I told him we aren't compatible as we don't believe in the same stuff. I feel bad for him and did like the look of him but these conspiracy theories are mental illness. It's almost like they are the new religion with the fevered zelous that the newly converts preach.. even when you tell them you're not interested in conspiracy theories they still bang them down your throat!

And the goddamn consultant Dr on the news who was to be sacked for not wanting a booster, saw no clinical benefit. Automatons on here were calling him thick and uninformed...I mean really.

I like Corbett, and the commenters on his forum tend to be super intelligent people from whom you can learn a lot!

Why is he a crank? Was he a crank when he agreed with you?

I’m not engaging in your mad BS. I have no interest in why this has derailed your life and spoilt your relationships with other people so much that you feel the need to find threads about conspiracy theories, and then hijack them with your own conspiracy theories.
I just don’t care enough about your opinion.

Lol

Why are people so threatened by opinions?

Same - there's a few 'friends' I have on Facebook who spout this garbage, and 75% of them are women.
That being said, one of them who is a man posts about 9,000 things a day - so balances it out!

I read this far in order to say, if anyone else hadn't already, I don't think more men than women believe in conspiracy theories, but I do believe they make more noise about it. Generally women are a bit too bogged down in making life easier for other people (men) to go the whole hog down the rabbit hole. The people they're making life easier for have more time to read and pontificate. 'Twas ever thus. (NAMALT, obviously.) But then the following occurred to me:

Isn't it far more likely that the conspiracy theorists are encouraged if not actively funded by governments, to distract interest and attention from the all too real transfer of power and money which goes on at a low (but not low enough) level every day? It's the Rothschilds, it's Soros, it's the WEF... no, it's the manufacturers, utility providers, distributors etc in your own back yard who are rinsing you and they're doing it in plain sight, no cover-up required! Many if not most of the representatives we voted for have shares and/or board positions in such businesses so they're hardly going to legislate against their own interests. That's one of the reasons I am not convinced by the COVID as fake/distraction idea. They'd do better in the long term if things remained stable. A lot of deaths, coffee stalls going bust etc is the very opposite of stable; it risks the bird in the hand for those two in the blighted bush over yonder. Transfer of a lot of money, ok - but the total pot is now a good deal smaller. I don't think they'd do that. (Though I suppose they could just genuinely be that stupid. Truss/Kwarteng mini-budget, anyone? Note that the markets hated that overt grab so it was reversed quick-smart. For now at least.)

Meanwhile those who might once have been truly independent thinkers are now engrossed in re-running old grainy footage of the moon landings, scanning photos and manifests of the Titanic, campaigning against 5G masts, sticking anti-COVID stickers on parking machines, and holding online meetings to discuss what really happened (is happening?) at Roswell. If I've stepped on one of your favourite theories, apologies. It's quite possible that some of these are actually true and it could well be yours. The truth is out there! Actually it's in here, but we're too busy looking out there. And it's bloody mundane if you consider the entire history of humankind.

Oh look, a squirrel...

Nobody with more than half a neuron believes the 5g shit. Why would the "powers that be" introduce something harmful, which is all pervading and would harm them too. Also the stupid q shit and "birds aren't real" nobody actually believes this, there are questions to be asked about events, but everyone questioning anything gets lumped in with the flat earthers. But it's easier for scoff and mock, than actually entertain the idea that powerful rich people would conspire to do harm.

Great question!

I think it’s how you view things- of course the government are going to give worst case scenarios if they need people to stay inside and stop spreading the disease.

I suspect a lot of the people criticising the ‘fearmongering’ are actually just anxious types and/or worriers who are annoyed about being made to worry.

I mostly did what the government asked, but I just largely ignored the ‘we’re all going to die’ rhetoric and got on with my life.

I may even have bent the rules ( am talking having 2 hours of exercise a day, rather than one. No parties!).

But I don’t blame the government for saying we should only go out for an hour a day.

Great post @Anniegetyourgun

I agree that people generally misunderstand elites and how they operate. They want power and money, yes, but there are plenty of non-lunatic ways to do that -- they don't need to unleash a global pandemic that tanks the global economy. There is already so much corruption and exploitation in the world that they can take advantage of, while keeping things stable enough to predictably increase their own position. I mean, plenty of rich and powerful people died during Covid, or lost everything, it would be quite a gamble and not at all necessary.

You are also very right that these days a lot of conspiracy theories are promoted by malign actors to further their own interests. Russia's information operations are well documented and include a huge amount of conspiracy promotion -- there is a reasonable theory that Russia was behind the initial QAnon postings even. It is not only Russia that does this, before anyone jumps on me, but it's a good place to start looking at this simply because there is a lot of research on it.

https://podbay.fm/p/david-halls-podcast/e/1315865129/video

Bloody hilarious and absolutely absurd. People who believe this trash are the true conspiracy theorists.

Hear hear.

Anniegetyourgun do you actually believe that biden makes any functional decisions about US policy? Really? Come the fuck on now.

The Georgia guidstones going boom during the start of the pandemic was a bit sus (one of my more wild eyed ones)

Er no, you are the one engaging in circular reasoning (i.e., when the evidence to support a claim is the same as the claim itself).

You're saying the vaccines did not contain the vaccine, but you have no idea what they did contain. So in essence: the vaccines were not vaccines, because they were not vaccines.

Whereas I was simply asking the logical followup to 'they weren't vaccines' (i.e., then what were they?)

Thanks for confirming you have no idea though.

Do you know what's in the different COVID vaccines and boosters? I don't.

Do you believe that we are being told the truth about what's in them? I don't.

I respect your right to hold a different opinion from me without lobbing insults at you!

Cannabis, mostly.

But I don't give a shit about it. I literally don't care. I don't care to debate it, I don't want to be ranted out by people who think they know things that aren't true.

I think a lot of sexual deviancy goes on among high society and always has. The establishment/legacy media keep it covered up or use it as leverage.

With social media now you get a lot of whispers and smoke and mirrors which bring things more to the forefront. The Biden-son laptop thing would have been more easily hushed up, some of the Epstein/Weinstein stuff or even the Dan Wootton thing now (who will have a lot of dirt on others).

A lot of conspiracy theorists will have high IQ's/intelligence as well though. It helps them think outside of the box and concoct a lot of detailed stuff and imagination. However, they often lack basic logic which puts paid to their ideas. You can be highly intelligent and be illogical or lacking in common sense.

Really! It's not thinking outside the box though it's parroting what someone on youtube said! I can see straight through those videos and I wouldn't say I'm hugely intelligent. I'm clever enough but not a brain box.

I wasn't responding to you OP, but it just occurred to me that if in your online dating profile you wrote something like:

"If you are cynical about most of what you hear or read from the mainstream media, please jog on and don't waste my time" or something to that effect, you could probably screen out "conspiracy theorists" (as you call them).

Yes, I believe the vaccines are vaccines.

You can believe what you want but given you have no evidence, no alternative explanation, and (I assume) no special expertise in this area, I really cannot understand where you are coming from.

It is not that I trust the government (especially this government!) but I do trust scientists and doctors and experts who gave their all to develop a vaccine and make sure we could all get it. I cannot imagine being so arrogant as to imagine that those thousands of people are all involved in a conspiracy and I'm one of the select few to know the truth (or not, given you can't even say what the truth really is).

There are so many objectively real horrible things being done to people right now, I just do not understand giving so much time and passion to invented conspiracies.