List you favorite conspiracy theory

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Kizmet, Aug 16, 2013.

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  1. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Whenever I relay my experiences to a conspiracy theorist the typical responses are:

    "You just didn't get high enough in the organization for them to trust you with the real secrets."
    "You were only a third degree Mason and everyone knows they don't reveal their secrets until the 33rd degree."*
    "Masonic Lodges are a front for the true evil Masonic organization. The lodge system is just a way to try to normalize attitudes toward freemasons."

    And, my personal favorite...

    "How do I know what you know? You could very well have all the secrets of the government in your mind and you're just trying to deflect attention from your brothers."

    *The highest degree for a freemason is the third degree (Master Mason). The 4th through thirty third degrees are administered by an appendant body known as the Scottish Rite which, despite the numerical increases, still maintains that the highest degree is the third while these other degrees are sort of "off to the side." Becoming a Scottish Rite Mason requires that you pay some dues. That's pretty much it. The ritual to get you to be able to officially call yourself a "32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason" is usually done over the course of a weekend. The Illustrious 33rd degree is by invitation only so hey, maybe Michael Richards really does control the global economy.
     
  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    My version of this is that I went to the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, an impressive building on a large grassy parcel of prime real estate overlooking old town Alexandria, Virginia. When I saw how dated the exhibits inside were, though, I thought, "There's no way these guys run the world."
     
  3. RAM PhD

    RAM PhD Member

    One of my favorite conspiracy theories goes something like this:

    1. A person obtains and touts either: (a) an unaccredited degree; or (b) or a degree that claims accreditation but the accreditation is from an unrecognized accrediting agency.

    2. The degree--especially if the degree is a doctorate--is used by the recipient in his/her professional life, e.g., on letterheads, business cards, social media sites such as LinkedIn, advertisements, company signs, etc.

    3.The theory, as postulated by some, is that the degree described in Number's 1 and 2 above, although it holds no recognized accreditation, is just as valid, legitimate, and has the same level of value and utility as a regionally or nationally accredited (or non-USA equivalent) degree.

    Herein lies the conspiracy!
     
  4. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    How about:

    Obama is a secret Muslim

    and

    Global Warming is a conspiracy (by 99.99% of climate scientists).
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Hmmm. What's the motive?
     
  6. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Communism.

    Or, Islam.

    It's one or the other.
     
  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    As I've heard it, one motivation is access to grant money, since without it the career of a science academic is nasty, brutish, and short.
     
  8. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Imagine, though, if you were the scientist to utterly disprove global warming and, thus, gave peace to mankind on this issue. You would soon be richer than you could dream.

    It is absurd to think so many scientists are hiding the truth, trumping up lies, and publishing false results in order to receive some grant money....grant money that's awarded BEFORE the results are generated, btw. I'd have to see the evidence for such a vast conspiracy and enterprise. There isn't any, of course.

    Occam's Razor: the solution with the fewest assumptions is that these scientists are publishing what they find.
     
  9. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I think it's a similar line of thinking when people assert that the cure for cancer has been around for decades but pharmaceutical companies keep it suppressed because they make more money treating, rather than curing, cancer.

    If a drug company came up with a cure for all forms of cancer they would make billions. They would make billions while simultaneously destroying any competitors in the oncology sector. Who would buy chemo drugs if cancer is cured?

    The idea that the companies instead collude to suppress a cure is absurd. But that doesn't keep some people from believing it.

    Kind of like how the moon landing "hoax" went off with not a single person breaking silence since 1969.
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I've always thought this one was exceptionally silly. I mean, it falls apart as soon as you consider that drug company executives and their loved ones get cancer too.
     
  11. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Do they? Or do they simply fake their deaths, take their golden parachutes to their rich guy islands and laugh at the rest of us as we die from the disease they cured during the Kennedy administration?

    Open your eyes, sheeple!

    But seriously, I have an uncle who spouts this sort of nonsense and I really can't fathom how a person above the age of 11 could honestly believe such things.
     
  12. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    "A genetic contribution to paranoid traits and a possible genetic link between this personality disorder and schizophrenia exist. Psychosocial theories implicate projection of negative internal feelings and parental modeling. Cognitive theorists believe the disorder to be a result of an underlying belief that other people are deceptive/malevolent in combination with a lack in self-confidence."

    or . . . it could all simply be true.:nono:
     
  13. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    I just read an entire book (whoo hoo! I'm so smart!) about how humans find what they believe to be meaningful patterns in completely random data. It has hardly anything to do with maturity, knowledge or intelligence. It has everything to do with how the belief was originally formed, the individual's tendency to have an external locus of control, unbalanced cognitive processes (possibly, excess pattern recognition ability without excess rational checks to that ability, or some form of dysfunction to the areas of the brain that would serve as rational checks to pattern recognition) and the wealth of well-known cognitive biases that allow humans- all humans- to expertly and even eloquently justify our refusal to change our minds about anything.

    These same handicaps exist in absolutely every fully functional human being. People who are prone to conspiratorial thinking are only barely any different from those who aren't, and it's hard to say that they are really at fault for being as they are.

    That is, unless there's a book that debunks the book I just read, a book to debunk that one and one to debunk that one ad infinitum. In that case, I still don't know anything about the subject and never will.
     
  14. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    That book does exist. It was written hundreds of years ago by an unknown author. It was difficult to translate, written in a mixture of ancient languages including at least one unknown language. The text was in the possession of Karl Jaspers for a period but disappeared in the last days of WWII. It has been rumored to have surfaced in Brazil in the late 60's and then again in SE Asia in the 70's. While this might suggest involvement with the White Lotus my sources have disavowed all knowledge of it's present whereabouts.
     
  15. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Or maybe the correct solution is that scientists are publishing the results that their funding sources want.
     
  16. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Oh, I imagine it happens sometimes, but most of that research is peer-reviewed. It certainly doesn't happen almost always, which is what that conspiracy theory requires.
     
  17. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Vegas casinos know this, which is why they have these poles near roulette tables that tell you the most recent numbers hit on each table. It's all random, but people begin giving meaning to the patterns they see. Ironically, people can create utterly opposite meanings to the exact same data. "Look, Harry, number 6 hasn't hit yet; it's due!" "Look, Harry, number 6 keeps hitting; it's hot!"

    It's merely a tax on people who don't understand statistics and probability.
     
  18. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  19. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

  20. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

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