Talk:Conspiracy theory

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(Mitrokhin Archive Addition?)
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I was wondering if we should make mention of a very ironic conspiracy that the Mitrokhin Archive mentions? The conspiracy I am refering to is the KGB's conspiracy to promote conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination, AIDs virus origins, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and assassination. Considering the authenticity of the Mitrokhin Archive, I was wondering if we should make mention of that as a "take-that" to conspiracy nuts. After all, the irony of a KGB conspiracy to get idiots to believe conspiracy theories is too ironic to not warrant discussion of whether we should include it? [[User:Crow7878|Crow7878]] ([[User talk:Crow7878|talk]]) 17:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 
I was wondering if we should make mention of a very ironic conspiracy that the Mitrokhin Archive mentions? The conspiracy I am refering to is the KGB's conspiracy to promote conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination, AIDs virus origins, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and assassination. Considering the authenticity of the Mitrokhin Archive, I was wondering if we should make mention of that as a "take-that" to conspiracy nuts. After all, the irony of a KGB conspiracy to get idiots to believe conspiracy theories is too ironic to not warrant discussion of whether we should include it? [[User:Crow7878|Crow7878]] ([[User talk:Crow7878|talk]]) 17:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 +
:{{fact}}, but if it's actually true, the KGB had to have been disappointed with the results. [[User:EVDebs|EVDebs]] ([[User talk:EVDebs|talk]]) 21:42, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Revision as of 21:42, 26 December 2012

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This conspiracy theories related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be with improvement.

This article is of HIGH importance to the wiki.

See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

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Editorial notes
  • Main article on a subject. This should balance thorough explanations of the properties of conspiracy theories while remaining brief enough to count as an overview of all of them.

Contents

Removal

I removed this:

"With all these claims, whether they be religious ones or claims about UFOs or faces on Mars or grassy knolls or WTC #7s falling down, you name it, there's always a tidy explanation for the lack of evidence. God has to hide so people can believe in him rather than just look up and say, hey, there's God. The UFOs are covered up by the CIA because if the Russians knew we were getting all our technology from Alpha Centauri they'd initiate a nuclear first strike before our perfect reverse-engineered Centaurian missile shield was ready. One faction in NASA sent the Mars probe to cash in on the contracts, and the other faction caused it to "fail" with buggy software to keep it from seeing the Martian monorail system, because if society saw how efficient mass transit worked on Mars, they'd demand it here on earth and the Oil Lobby mightn't like it."

Because I couldn't make hide nor hair of what it was trying to say. Maybe I missed the point? Maybe it was just a rambling rant? Let us discuss this. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:46, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

The paragraph in question is talking about how conspiracy theories explain away their lack of evidence with "a tidy explanation" (one that fits into their conspiracy). Like, "I can't prove I built an over-unity machine because the Government stole the evidence." I think it made sense, but it gave way too many examples to be coherent. Stilldeciding (talk) 18:49, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Anyone bought/buying "Voodoo Histories" by "David Aaranovitch" about conspiracy theories [1][2]? ToastToastand marmite 08:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Concern trolling

I maybe wrong but isn't this site supposed to be unbiased because whoever wrote this page was dong a very poor job of it. They blatantly were trying to convince the reader that conspiracy theories are all untrue. While I do not support the large majority of conspiracy theories the author should not simply dismiss them all, after all even by their definition of a conspiracy theory they are unable to disprove those theories.— Unsigned, by: 66.90.104.230 / talk / contribs

Um no, this site is not suppose to be unbiased, we are biased towards reality. Sometimes that is hard to determine, so the balance of probability is used, along with we logical devices such as burden of proof. Read some of the info about our site if you would like to learn more. - π 12:07, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
As someone who often removes a lot of the uneeded and OTT bias from RW, I fail to see where any of the BONs accusations are. Perhaps if they were more specific rather than vague-ish - well, that'd be wishful thinking. The calim that the article suggests "conspiracy theories are all untrue" is blatantly false, it very clearly mentions that once a conspiracy theory has been proven, it becomes a conspiracy and it's out in the open and known - hence a conspiracy theory is either A) not proven to be true or B) proven not to be true. It's in the first section of the article. Scarlet A.pngpathetic 01:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Quote

Anyone who knows how difficult it is to keep a secret among three men - particularly if they are married - knows how absurd is the idea of a worldwide secret conspiracy consciously controlling all mankind by its financial power; in real, clear analysis.
—Oswald Mosley
Can't find out exactly where he said it, but I thought it might be worth using. 13:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC) SusanG Toast

Three chaps married to each other - bigamous/polyandros civil partnership?

The following are likely to apply.

Andy Warhol - everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame.

Money talks (somebody needs the money) - even if writing a potentially best-selling novel on the subject.

Alexander Butterfield-ism - somebody will reveal the information accidentally. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:02, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

'Actually, actually' the conspiracy theorists are part of the conspiracy - it is in their interests for 'the truth' #not# to be revealed. 212.85.6.26 (talk) 15:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As long as there's a section for this, I'll throw this one in from Doctor Who:
You're happy to believe in something that's invisible, but when it's staring you in the face, nope! Can't see it! There's a scientific explanation for that: You're thick.
—Christopher Eccleston, World War Three

--جئت ورأيت أنا القرف gross, isn't it? 22:19, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Duplicate article

This isn't a duplicate article to me. One is the factual reality of conspiracies as they exist in the world; the other is about the nutjob theories. Pink mowse.pngGodotGrow a vagina 20:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Nobody can doubt that conspiracies exist. I would suggest that any planned criminal act which involves a group of people needs them to conspire in order to carry it out.
This can be contrasted with "conspiracy theory" which typically tries to retrofit disparate facts in order to fit them to some imagined though non-existent (and usually unbelievably complex) conspiracy.--BobSpring is sprung! 20:30, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Actually as Keely pointed out in his 1999 paper Of Conspiracy theories (reprinted as chapter 4 of David Coady's 2006 Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate Ashgate ISBN 978-0754652502) there are warranted and unwarranted conspiracy theories. Here is a short list of warranted conspiracy theories:
  • Al Capone was behind the Saint Valentine's Day massacre
  • Area 51 is being used to test top secret fighter craft of purely terrestrial origin.
  • Jimmy Hoffa was killed by the Mob and buried in an unknown location
  • The Nazis set the Reichstag fire
The point of this is to show all conspiracy theories NOT in the nutjob category--those are just the ones that the media focuses on. The above are conspiracy theories and they are also perfectly rational.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't think the two are duplicates. But the warranted/unwarranted comparison is interesting enough to keep. Perhaps use that to expand the conspiracy article instead as this page is, by the nature of RW, going to be devoted to the "unwarranted" versions. Scarlet A.pngbomination 11:22, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
The problem is conspiracy is about the act itself while conspiracy theories are the idea that there is a conspiracy involved. There is no proof that 'Al Capone was behind the Saint Valentine's Day massacre' hence it is a conspiracy theory. --BruceGrubb (talk) 05:38, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Mitrokhin Archive Addition?

I was wondering if we should make mention of a very ironic conspiracy that the Mitrokhin Archive mentions? The conspiracy I am refering to is the KGB's conspiracy to promote conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination, AIDs virus origins, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and assassination. Considering the authenticity of the Mitrokhin Archive, I was wondering if we should make mention of that as a "take-that" to conspiracy nuts. After all, the irony of a KGB conspiracy to get idiots to believe conspiracy theories is too ironic to not warrant discussion of whether we should include it? Crow7878 (talk) 17:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

[citation needed], but if it's actually true, the KGB had to have been disappointed with the results. EVDebs (talk) 21:42, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
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