Conspiracy theories (meta)

Well yes, I mean, I don't think any Illuminati buff has ever seen that comic and gone "oh hey, he's right" and then suddenly went and did something else with their lives.

It does not usually work that way.

inb4 "Anything that appears to make fun of conspiracy theories is propaganda"

I think that on a subconscious level, people find it appealing to break down everything that is wrong in the world from something fairly chaotic and hard-to-change and turn it into "It's they're fault, get rid of them and we're ok guys!".

That's not to say conspiracies don't happen, but it's not so much "Take over the world! Of course!" as it is a group of greedy bastards and their not-very-subtle attempts to get some more cash and a little bit more influence.

Organized crime conspiracy is my favorite to be honest. I find them amusing.

Having read about the Yakuza, any mob tale involving goombas pales in comparison.

edited 17th Jul '11 7:18:09 PM by johnnyfog

Yakuza and Triad are both nasty customers and rather intriguing. The mafia is a bit more tame by comparison.

Well yeah, if they were vulnerable to mere logic, they wouldn't exactly be believe the Illuminati existed in the first place, would they?

But obviously some people do come back from conspiracytown, and I'd be curious to know what did it for them. I'm guessing that, much like what seems to be the pattern for leaving other establishments, questioning and dissatisfaction grows over a period of time from a variety of sources, until they finally call it quits.

To play devils advocate, who's to say that that comic might not have been one such source?

Oooh Oooh what about the one world power which uses the U.N. as a front to take over the world starting with Western Europe then the U.S.

What about the one where ancient orders of Satan-worshipping Druids collaborate with record companies to cast spells on rock music, so that they'll brainwash listeners into accepting the New World Order?

While some conspiracies are truth (usually within the private sector such as air companies secretly deciding air tariffs i.e price fixing) most theories are just elaborate delusions created so that people can cope with the disappointing reality.

For instance:

Truthers (9/11): Its imposible for some guys hiding in caves to come with such an elaborate plan to kill us, it most have been our own goverment because only we are so powerful.

Moon landing hoax: The reason why we haven't gone back to the moon is because we never went there in the first place, not because we found out we had no real reason to go there other than impressing the soviets.

Vaccines hoaxes (specially H 1 N 1): Its impossible for something like the black death to kill 40% of the world population, all this prevention is really a ploy to make us all autistic/ make big pharma rich.

Jews rule the world/bilderberg-group/U.N-takeover/miscellaneous: The world is not a just a series of random events that can not be shaped or predicted because humanity in reality has no control over its own destiny but is rather impotent to shape a unifying policy. No, in reality it was all a plan conceived by a couple 1000 super-rich genius masterminds who control everything and everyone and can decide the faith of the world.

Global warming is a hoax: New York and Hong Kong will not flood in 100 years and the Polar bears will not go extinct alongside 30% of the known living organisms on earth in the same time span, no, in reality its all just a big lie made by Al Gore and a couple 1000 scientist so he can sell more book and so we have to pay more taxes.

edited 17th Jul '11 8:44:08 PM by jejl

The 911 towers collapsing does have questions, but if the kinetic energy could melt steel it makes sense.

Y'know, I saw Loose Change, and my own mother (an anti-vaccination convert) still believes Bush had a hand in 9/11.

Chomsky said something which basically shut down the whole argument in ten words or less. This would have been a mammoth operation. If even one agent had squealed, that would have been the end of the Republican Party forever. All of our leaders would be hanged.

And so, we go back to the previously-stated truism about "how many conspirators".

"These ludicrous conspiracy theories are just a smokescreen to hide the incredible truth" Chris madden.

and about 9/11 I will not go into detail about it but I think people are undermining the impact that crashing a full size, gasoline filled, jet-liner, at about 500 miles per hour against a couple of pillars that have to sustain a couple 1000 tons would have on the overall structural integrity of the twin tawers... and sure, that couldn't possibly produce the structure to collapse (sarcasm*). There is something called metal fatigue and some planes have crashed do to it without having gone trough any traumatic impact or being set alight in fire. It is actually amazing that structure stood up for so long.

edited 17th Jul '11 8:18:03 PM by jejl

While the bilderburg group is undoubtedly powerful and influential I doubt they are even close to one world power stuff.

Kinetic energy can cause metal to melt. It happens with Kinetic energy penetrators. Specifically the depleted Uranium variety. The problem is the velocity needed to generate the force is quite high. The planes undoubetedly generated a ton of kinetic energy but not in the same manner a kinetic energy penetrator would and it was spread out across alarge area.

The steel didn't likely melt from kinetic energy. However jet fuel burns really damn hot. Problem is common airliner fuels do not burn hot enough to melt structural steel. Some military grade jet fuels do though. JP-4 one of the common fuels burns at over 3000 degrees. Since JP-4 is no longer widely used by the military some civilian companies have supposedly been using it as it is cheaper ot get and easier to make. 50/50 Kerosene and Gasoline.

edited 17th Jul '11 8:34:18 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I think the problem with the "Jews rule the world" conspiracy is the assumption that Jews always agree on everything, like they have some sort of Hive Mind.

In reality, Jews Love to Argue and it's basically impossible to get a bunch of Jews to agree on basically everything.

So the notion that we could somehow agree that it is in our best interests to oppress and enslave all the goyim shiksa and shegetz so that Israel becomes a world superpower, and then be organized enough to carry it out, is simply ludicrous.

My biggest problem with many conspiracy theories, aside from them getting more outlandish the larger the scope is, is that it assumes the cabals that be always think alike and on the same lines - as if none of them had individual ambitions and would be content to remain an Omniscient Council of Vagueness.

The metal didnt melt... it just expanded because of the heat and push some inner walls, thus debilitating the structure and putting more weight on the columns which bended downwards when they could no longer sustain the 20 or 30 some floors above them.

I mean, had it been a control detonation, wouldn't the plane`s impact had activated the bombs or at least rendered them unusable? I mean there are planty of controlled demolitions that fail with out having to with stand a jet-liner impact.

edited 17th Jul '11 8:46:16 PM by jejl

9/11 was an insect job! Super-termites brought down the towers!

I, for one, would like to welcome our new termite overlords.

JEWS DID PEARL HARBOR.

Did you know that insects outnumber us, like, 100 to 1? Human natives are being bred out of existence!

The bacteria conspiracy is worse! they outnumber us trillions to one!

Disease is a conspiracy to kill off humans!

It's all so obvious now!

Not just humans, but animals too!

Ignoring those poor, down trodden plants. You all should be ashamed.