Talk:Conspiracy theory
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*What is the likelihood of 'one or several people' deciding to keep records so they can pass the blame when necessary/write a best selling expose of the conspiracy? | *What is the likelihood of 'one or several people' deciding to keep records so they can pass the blame when necessary/write a best selling expose of the conspiracy? | ||
*People like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wills_(security_guard)] or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Butterfield] will always exist. [[Special:Contributions/82.44.143.26|82.44.143.26]] ([[User talk:82.44.143.26|talk]]) 16:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC) | *People like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wills_(security_guard)] or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Butterfield] will always exist. [[Special:Contributions/82.44.143.26|82.44.143.26]] ([[User talk:82.44.143.26|talk]]) 16:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC) | ||
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| + | == Poe Fishing == | ||
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| + | I was reading the page on Poe's Law, and I got this great(or not so great, but still funny) idea: concoct some silly, outrageous conspiracy theory, post it online, see who agrees, and get some easy laughs. I have even come up with a few "bait" theories already. Here they are: | ||
| + | (1. Toys 'Я' Us is actually secretly communist because they use the Cyrillic letter "Я" instead of good ol' American "R" as a secret sign to all neo-communists! | ||
| + | (2. The ancient Romans and the ancient Germanic barbarians both knew about America because the abbreviation for West Virginia is WV, and since in German, Ws are said as Vs, and in Latin, Vs are said as Ws, so WV said in German and Latin is VW, which conveniently stands for Volkswagen!!! | ||
Revision as of 17:38, 22 March 2014
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. ħuman
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]? ![]()
and 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.
theist 01:57, 15 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.
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.
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| —Oswald Mosley |
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.
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| —Christopher Eccleston, World War Three |
--جئت ورأيت أنا القرف gross, isn't it? 22:19, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
'There are always loose ends' and the 50/30/20 year rule (or similar).
First organise a street party/a group outing and then organise a conspiracy.
How long before someone in the conpiracy decides it is in their interests to reveal some information (as with Butterfield) or there are conflicts of interest leading to spillover. 171.33.197.73 (talk) 17:11, 6 August 2013 (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.
GodotGrow 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.
bomination 11:22, 4 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.
- 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)
- 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)
- This is a section of the book I am refering to (the book by intelligence historian Christopher Andrew named "Sword and Shield", which was about the contents of the Mitrokhin Archive). The authenticity of the Mitrokhin Archive has been confirmed by the United States Air Force Academy, FBI, and American Historical Association among others. Sword and Shield is filled with various conspiracies plotted or attempted by the KGB, but the section about the insanity that is the KGB conspiracy to make large amounts of people believe in crazy conspiracies is the one of most interest due to the irony that numerous conspiracy theorists were doing as the KGB wanted them to do. I do wonder what you meant by the KGB having been dissappointed with the results? Crow7878 (talk) 04:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Something on Harper's magazine
Perhaps we can cram "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" in Harper's magazine in this article? Although this is old, it's still got a touch of "current" to it. Faunas (talk) 21:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Spoof theories
'Count Arthur Strong' (TV series) - a character claims that there was a conspiracy involving the Olympic Games - and it takes 4 years to train the actors involved. 171.33.197.73 (talk) 17:05, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Titanium dioxide
This food colouring / pigment seems to be attracting a crowd of nuts claiming it is mag arising us for government death rays or similar. If someone has time, I reccomend you look into it. — Unsigned, by: Madattak / talk / contribs
Latching to Tragedy
I heavily edited this section because as it stood it was a pretty craven apologia for the whole "this tragedy is too sacred to discuss, any debate which is not entirely orthodox is forbidden" line of reasoning, which to my mind is anathema to the whole point of Rational Wiki.
I know we don't hold much with conspiracy theories in general, but we also recognise that many legitimate concerns are dismissed as conspiracy theories, and that the term "conspiracy theorist" is much overused as a snarl word.
The section was kind of embarrassing, and I think it's better now, although it could do with expansion/cleanup.— Unsigned, by: Wulfsten / talk / contribs 10:58, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
- First, please refrain from using the collective "we" until you actually become a part of the community.
- Second, I didn't revert your edit, but I guess it was reverted because it looked too much as the kind of shit conspiracists like to spout to justify their behaviour. Anyway, I think that the section should be radically rewritten.
- As for "many legitimate concerns are dismissed as conspiracy theories" I would like to see what you consider to be examples.--ZooGuard (talk) 12:09, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
- Wow, firstly: not allowed to use "we"? What an unnecessary attempt at exclusion. I'll use whatever pronoun I like, thanks. You can feel free to not consider yourself part of the "we" I referred to.
- The edit hasn't been reverted as far as I can see, but in either case it has nothing to do with "the kind of shit conspiracists like to spout". You'll find ample evidence on Rational Wiki of an awareness of the difference between a conspiracy theory that is prima facie absurd, a PRATT, or cynically motivated (see 9/11 truthers, Obama birthers, etc.), and a legitimate argument that is dismissed by using "conspiracy" as a snarl word (see Edward Snowden and the NSA files, polonium poisoning evidence on Yasser Arafat's body, CIA destruction of video tapes potentially evincing torture, etc).
- Specifically on bombings, why not take some time out to read about the wave of false flag operations and black propaganda conducted by various governments during the Cold War, notably the US and Italian governments. These are now matters of public record, but at the time the mere suggestion that the Italian government could have been behind an attack in an attempt to discredit the Communists was considered "disrespectful" and "forbidden". Wulfsten (talk) 10:04, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
9/11 and home-grown nuts
One of the "warranted" conspiracy theories is: "Al-Qaeda or a group of some home grown nuts in the Timothy McVeigh mold were responsible for the 9/11 attacks"
Is it warranted to think that 9/11 was perpetrated by "home grown nuts in the Timothy McVeigh mold"? Is there substantial evidence to support this theory over the widely-accepted theory that Al Qaeda was responsible? U-238 (talk) 04:08, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
- No. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
04:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
Logistics
Some more points:
- Is there an easier way to do it than a conspiracy?
- Murphy's Law and 'nothing can be made foolproof as fools are so ingenious.'
- What is the likelihood of 'some other conspiracy' getting in a tangle with the given conspiracy? (And/or what are the chances of factionalism within the conspiracy?)
- What is the likelihood of 'one or several people' deciding to keep records so they can pass the blame when necessary/write a best selling expose of the conspiracy?
- People like [3] or [4] will always exist. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Poe Fishing
I was reading the page on Poe's Law, and I got this great(or not so great, but still funny) idea: concoct some silly, outrageous conspiracy theory, post it online, see who agrees, and get some easy laughs. I have even come up with a few "bait" theories already. Here they are: (1. Toys 'Я' Us is actually secretly communist because they use the Cyrillic letter "Я" instead of good ol' American "R" as a secret sign to all neo-communists! (2. The ancient Romans and the ancient Germanic barbarians both knew about America because the abbreviation for West Virginia is WV, and since in German, Ws are said as Vs, and in Latin, Vs are said as Ws, so WV said in German and Latin is VW, which conveniently stands for Volkswagen!!!