What's the Craziest Conspiracy you've ever encountered??

[Faria]

I knew a guy in New York City who got a free laptop, $1000 monthly, and opportunities to appear on podcasts, just to spread Flat Earth ideas.

The whole Flat Earth thing is a way to test propaganda by studying how popular an obviously dumb idea can become through social contagion. Flat Earth scooped up people who wanted to belong, who wanted to question orthodoxy, and who were otherwise untethered by authority.

After a couple of years promoting Flat Earth, what do we see? Covid, which was promoted through ridiculous lies about bat soup, followed by an experimental gene therapy that caused an untold number of sudden deaths among otherwise healthy people but was hyper-promoted with a vigor never before connected to any product.

Flat Earth was just sights-adjustment for the propaganda that kept people from freaking out about the attempt to roll out a totalitarian program to expel counter-revolutionaries from industry, academics, and politics.

 

[silencewaits]

I knew a guy in New York City who got a free laptop, $1000 monthly, and opportunities to appear on podcasts, just to spread Flat Earth ideas.

The whole Flat Earth thing is a way to test propaganda by studying how popular an obviously dumb idea can become through social contagion. Flat Earth scooped up people who wanted to belong, who wanted to question orthodoxy, and who were otherwise untethered by authority.

After a couple of years promoting Flat Earth, what do we see? Covid, which was promoted through ridiculous lies about bat soup, followed by an experimental gene therapy that caused an untold number of sudden deaths among otherwise healthy people but was hyper-promoted with a vigor never before connected to any product.

Flat Earth was just sights-adjustment for the propaganda that kept people from freaking out about the attempt to roll out a totalitarian program to expel counter-revolutionaries from industry, academics, and politics.

Well, mRNA vaccines aren't experimental gene therapy. There's a conspiracy for you. But the propaganda was definitely heavy.

 

[Xenophon]

But I AM threated, goddamit! If I am in a discussion where I have to prove the world is a globe to someone who literally gets their mind from fringe podcasts, to me the implications are dire. Reptoids, yeah, they got teeth, whatever the fuck ever - I saw Aliens (with Sigourney Weaver) and its all good. That is not a threat, just a dark adventure for which I am materially prepped.
However, if I ask someone if the world is round or flat and they hesitate... what are the implications for humanity? No big deal for burger flipping or daily mundane dog walking, but the spread of mass stupidity on a basic level smacks of a return to medieval serfdom.

Reformed Catholic Scientology is coming and will spread to the "Four Corners of the Earth" to bring the salvation of Billion Year Contracts by fire and sword. Perhaps this will work better if it is flat to the average earth human - Jerusalem is at the center, which makes it the North Pole, and Santa's workshop is right next to the Church of the Nativity.

If there is a dome over this flat world which prevents man from getting into space (which isn't real), then V2 rockets never hit London, which means that WW2 never happened and all history is a LIE LIE LIE!

And you think its "meh"?
Oh, okay. Flat Earth is still the last book on the conspiracy shelf. Go on, deny it.

OK. I denied it. Now what?...(sound of wind, in the distance a dog barks.)... Maybe I am emotionally underinvested in this whole round earth thing. About all your apocalyptic sketch above tells me is that things would sure be different, if things was different. Here, let me perform what scientists in B-movies call a "critical experiment."....(sound of door closing...opening....paper being unrolled, masking tape torn...). There. I threw away my globe and taped a paper map of earth flat on the shelf in its place. I still feel pretty much the same. Yep. That's a definite "meh." Wait'll I tell my buds at Q-Anon about this!

 

[silencewaits]

But I AM threated, goddamit! If I am in a discussion where I have to prove the world is a globe to someone who literally gets their mind from fringe podcasts, to me the implications are dire. Reptoids, yeah, they got teeth, whatever the fuck ever - I saw Aliens (with Sigourney Weaver) and its all good. That is not a threat, just a dark adventure for which I am materially prepped.
However, if I ask someone if the world is round or flat and they hesitate... what are the implications for humanity? No big deal for burger flipping or daily mundane dog walking, but the spread of mass stupidity on a basic level smacks of a return to medieval serfdom.

Reformed Catholic Scientology is coming and will spread to the "Four Corners of the Earth" to bring the salvation of Billion Year Contracts by fire and sword. Perhaps this will work better if it is flat to the average earth human - Jerusalem is at the center, which makes it the North Pole, and Santa's workshop is right next to the Church of the Nativity.

If there is a dome over this flat world which prevents man from getting into space (which isn't real), then V2 rockets never hit London, which means that WW2 never happened and all history is a LIE LIE LIE!

And you think its "meh"?
Oh, okay. Flat Earth is still the last book on the conspiracy shelf. Go on, deny it.

There's a video of science-deniers who try to prove the Earth has no curvature by dumping a bunch of money into research and a documentary. I don't remember the specifics, but it's a laser that has to meet a certain point some distance away. You can guess the rest. If you can find that it might help your argument.

 

[Xenophon]

There's a video of science-deniers who try to prove the Earth has no curvature by dumping a bunch of money into research and a documentary. I don't remember the specifics, but it's a laser that has to meet a certain point some distance away. You can guess the rest. If you can find that it might help your argument.

What argument? Was someone saying the earth actually is flat? My contention is that the question really does not very much vex me. As such, the theory fails the test of a conspiracy theory having to rouse strong emotions. Though, I am willing to entertain the contention that sheer absurdity might quality a theory. The grounds would be that derisive laughter must count as the "strong emotion" I stipulated. Maybe I'm just jaded by the theory's being so familiar.

 

[HoldAll]

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[Xenophon]

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Do marketing moves count as conspiracy theories? There is a similar theory about Michael Jackson, but it does not to seem have gained a whole lot of traction.

 

[Mrknshtkaah]

What argument? Was someone saying the earth actually is flat? My contention is that the question really does not very much vex me. As such, the theory fails the test of a conspiracy theory having to rouse strong emotions. Though, I am willing to entertain the contention that sheer absurdity might quality a theory. The grounds would be that derisive laughter must count as the "strong emotion" I stipulated. Maybe I'm just jaded by the theory's being so familiar.

In one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, Dr. Watson informed Sherlock Holmes that the earth circles the sun, and not verse-vicea.* To which Sherlock replied that he didn't know that, and now that he did, he would strive his utmost to forget it, because the human brain possesses limited informational storage capacity, and that particular fact was of no use to him whatsoever.

*footnote Actually, due to mutual gravitational effects, the earth and the sun do in fact circle each other; it's just that the enormous mass disparity entails that the sun describes much tinier circles inside the earth's much wider orbit. But it's surpassingly difficult to grok how that particular fact could possibly have aided Sherlock, or even his older smarter brother Mycroft, to solve any mysterious crimes either.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I think my favourite conspiracy is one that started as a joke and now has gained ground amongst nutters; that birds don't exist

And if the Earth really was flat, cats would have pushed everything off it by now!