Good point. There is <=1 Bigfoot, and it takes >1 for a conspiracy.
It depends. If you believe that Oswald was not the assassin, then you are possibly stupid. If you believe there are still some mysteries about why Oswald shot JFK, you are simply curious.
But whoever said Bigfoot was urban?
Altho indeed there have been many* cover-ups*, none of those were subjects of widespread Conspiracy Theories. We have had several threads on whether or not any widespread CT turned out to be true, and the general consensus is NO.
I spotted him in Times Square. Is that urban enough?
UFOs certainly can be, like the Royal Family being Interstellar Reptile people, and so forth.
Bigfoot is just a hoax, and sure it can be fun. There are certainly cryptids out there (they find several large new species every decade) , so Cryptozoologists are certainly not always nuts…
Coverups? Sure. Plenty. Especially when people screw up and try to cover their asses. Usually it is pretty minor stuff.
When you start spouting stuff like the Twin Towers being wired for demolition in secret you go well across a line.
Are they as big as the things Art Bell blabbed about? Are they as big as vaccine side-effects being covered up? That Hale-Bopp had a companion and every amateur astronomer in the world was in on the cover-up?
That bad Hollywood script thinking.
And in the long run, a lot of coverups get revealed, not all, of course. Trouble is, by the time it gets revealed no-one really cares.
UFOs get well into big conspiracy theory territory when you have things like aliens at Area 51, Men-in-Black, and such. Flat Earth is definitely in CT territory as it involves pretty much all the engineers, international pilots, and physical scientists to be involved in a massive coverup.
IMHO they are harmful in the long run.
Sure, it can be fun at the beginning, but eventually you will get fanatics/hard believers of those conspiracies into positions of power that follow those “fun” conspiracies. Then we are all in trouble.
Yeah, but is that harmful though. I don’t think so. See, a conspriacy theory is only harmful if a large number of people believe it, and if they are actively doing harmful things. Flat earthers aren’t murdering scientists, pilots, etc. The flat earth society has 46K twitter follows. That’s pathetic.
I admit I’d be concerned if members of the Flat Earth Society were planting bombs on planes or ships, saying they deserve it for supporting the lie of “global” travel, or murdering employees of NASA or the ESA.
I’m not fond of conspiracy theorists, but as long as they take no violent action, they’re (barely) tolerable.
In a nation where more than 40% of the population believes in Biblical creationism and rejects the tenets of evolution, denial of something as provably factual as the spheroid shape of the planet is a real problem. Even if flat earthers are a minority of people overall, their example of how to deny evidence in pursuit of a belief serves as a demonstration to others who will use the same methods to espouse and propagate harmful beliefs.
Fictional stories about the supernatural, aliens, et cetera are fine because we all understand that they are imaginary. When people start pretending the imaginary is real and equivilating fiction with fact, it serves to undermine the value of actual evidence and critical thinking, qualities that are in increaselying short supply in the public sphere.
Stranger
In the 21st Century CTs are certainly not harmless when you have people harassing those that lost loved one in the “offboarded planes” on 9/11 or parents of children “that never existed” after Sandy Hook.
To be fair, we don’t know how many of the Flat Earthers are doing it ironically.
Get it? Ironic? Fe? Flat Earth? Huh? Huh?
Yes, I forgot about them. Conspiracy Theories are (barely) tolerable as long as they’re not violent or assholes.
Analogous situation: the argument that it’s OK if your doctor espouses supposedly harmless woo for a relatively insignificant medical condition.
Even if it is safe to (for example) prescribe homeopathic magic water for a cold (no medical treatment of any kind, including placebos is ever 100% safe), the problem is that the groundwork has been laid for patients believing that homeopathy can also be used for treating, say, a serious heart condition or cancer.
Very often, the lapse or absence of critical thinking that leads to acceptance of one conspiracy/goofball theory promotes eventual acceptance of a flock of others, of varying degrees of malignancy. Crank magnetism* is a real phenomenon. Best not to indulge it at all.
*“A sovereign citizen, a creationist, an anti-vaxxer, and a conspiracy theorist walk into a bar. He orders a drink.”
Harmful isn’t just caused by people killing people. Harmful can happen in other ways.
A healthy skepticism about government claims is good, but when you take it to excess it becomes problematic. Soon you have people not brushing their teeth because government agencies recommend it (and the advice of dentists). Seems like an extreme case? Well then take water fluoridation. Many folks suffer dental health issues because paranoid some people, usually in other counties or states, decided that this was a government plot to poison them all.
It isn’t too far of a fall with conspiracy mindset to start actively not participating in the government - to whit I never encountered a 9/11 truther in the US who actually voted during elections: “Why should I vote when the Illuminati has already decided who is going to win?!” was an all too common and tragic attitude. They saw themselves as future Zamfpolit in a coming revolution, but couldn’t be bothered to vote against the people they railed against.
Harmful shows up in other ways besides murder: Look at what the Sandy Hook truthers have done to the parents of victims. That is mental cruelty beyond all measure. It isn’t limited to Sandy Hook, either - The Boston Marathon bombing, the Las Vegas Mass shooting, all have cruel, disgusting human antics brought on by this encroaching paranoia. Just last month some would be truther types confronted the victim parishoners of that Texas Baptist church that was the scene of a mass shooting. That is harmful even if no bodily harm was done.
Flat Earth is more than just its twitter following (there’s probably dozens of such accounts). I’ve encountered more than a couple just in my daily routine where in a more rational world I would have to do some serious hunting to find one (and that FE would probably just be having a lark). This is what happens when you fail to counter the fact-free void of conspiracy theories.
‘Golf Clap’
It’s real trivially easy to make up a name and some credentials and get it added to that list of architects and engineers. I’ve done it a few times when I’m really bored.
I’m so stealing this.