conspiracy theories

Hopeful, definitely in a strange way.  Yeah it made his life more hopeful.  And he exercised his freedom to fight for something that he believed in.  But, how much damage did his activism hurt those that believed him?

I'm reminded me of a Doctor Who quote from the 70s (Tom Baker years, episode The Face of Evil).

Edited by Logan - October 17 2021 at 21:04

Guys space is fake earth is flat aliens are the government close it up!

Some humor......

I think loneliness and feelings of alienation are a factor, as well as general insecurity and obsessiveness.  People want answers, they want to feel special in their arcane knowledge (they know something others don't-- they see it where others don't).  Things feel wrong to people and they want answers.  They want to feel secure in having certain knowledge that most do not possess.  People look for patterns.  And then they look for community with like-minded individuals.  This leads to confirmation bias and going deeper and deeper.  It could be powerful to feel that something is fundamentally wrong with general understanding, the truth is out there and we have discovered the truth.  It's a kind of empowerment -- being special.

Belief in CT's is really just based in an inability, by the individual to accept that, sometimes sh*t just happens. They take comfort in believing that there is an order and structure to what are often random and unconnected events. That reality is even more frightening to some, than the existence of a powerful cabal pulling the strings, because if there is a cabal, it can be potentially exposed and destroyed.

Random events are just that, and therefore beyond control. This can be terrifying for some.

It is important however to differentiate between conspiracy theories, and actual conspiracies. The definition of conspiracy is - more or less - two or more people, meeting in secret to agree and elicit a beneficial outcome to them. That happens every day within every multinational business and every government. It has to. That's how it's done.

Mirakaze wrote: A few years ago I read an article about a man whose grandson suffered from a severely debilitating form of autism, and who, convinced that the MMR vaccine was to blame for the child's condition, had made it his life mission to denounce the evils of vaccines all around the country. The reporter then interviewed the man's wife, who said that her husband's anti-vaccine activism had actually been very therapeutic and liberating for him, and it's not hard to see why: humans naturally tend to identify patterns even where none exist, and it feels more comforting to think of bad events in your life as having been bestowed upon you by malignant actors against whom you can lash out, rather than as a mere cruel twist of fate with no one to blame. The worldview of people who are deep in some conspiracy rabbit hole might seem extremely bleak and pessimistic, but in a strange way it's actually quite hopeful too: those people can clearly identify that there is a lot wrong with society, but they see all of it as the result of deliberate actions by a few evil men at the top, and believe that disposing of them will be enough to make society righteous and happy again.

The Greenpeace authorities also believe that if they/we dispose of the owners of companies such as Shell, we will live happily ever after. Same shallowness, if you ask me.

 One of the craziest ones that I heard during the pandemic claimed there was some cosmic convergence of the universe happening in early 2021 & the vaccine was some massive international plot to keep us from communing with the universe ( something like that) Not sure why they didn't want us to commune with the universe , they couldn't explain that part. 

Edited by Argo2112 - October 18 2021 at 10:58