Seems to me that letting people believe in UFOs passing by on any kind of a regular basis will create more ‘noise’ (a lower signal to noise ratio) which would mean less people paying attention to actual military aircraft testing.
I feel like it’s pretty safe to assume the vast majority of ‘UFO sightings’ are military aircraft that the military won’t confirm was them. They might as well let all the crazies believe it and make sure the rest of us don’t go poking around.
OTOH, the government has little to gain or lose by identifying UFOs. Why would they care one way or the other if you or I reported a UFO?
Because conspiracy theories are obviously not meant to convince the public. You seem to be overlooking the whole purpose of conspiracy theories.
For one thing, they’re entertainment. The more unlikely they are, the more entertaining they are. To their consumers, conspiracy theories are like suspense series on TV or thriller movies. The more twists and turns and completely unexpected surprises, the more the audience likes it.
Secondly–and more importantly–why would they ever want the public to believe them? The primary appeal to the followers of CTs is that they are the ones in the know–they are special, because they’re the only ones who know what’s really going on. It gives them an elevated status. So, they need to talk about the conspiracy theory–to “expose it”–to show that they know about it, but at the same time, in order to feel “superior,” they need to ensure that other people will reject it, and be “fooled.”
More precisely, there have been no conspiracy theories uncovered by amateur sleuths and flogged endlessly on the Internet that have turned out to be true.
A current favorite CT is that the C.I.A. invented the term “conspiracy theory” to mock and obscure the existence of conspiracies. Of course that’s yet another bogus conspiracy theory.
I always think of Project Azorian as an example of a true conspiracy. That was an effort by the CIA to recover a sunken Soviet submarine under the pretext of mining the sea floor for manganese. The effort was discovered, but the New York Times held off on publishing the story while the operation was ongoing.
That’s what a real conspiracy looks like. It couldn’t be kept secret. And hardly anybody remembers it, probably because it’s true.
You are seriously suggesting that the root of all conspiracy theories is prejudice? Which ethnic group do the moon landing conspiracy theorists hate? There are JFK conspiracy theories that blame the Russians, the Cubans, the mob, the CIA, and a few others. What is the common prejudice between them?
There are some obviously racist conspiracy theories. Jewish banking conspiracies, various conspiracies accusing shadowy forces of keeping down minorities, ‘one world government’ plans, etc. But I doubt fhat such motivations make up even half of conspiracy theories.
Yeah there’s a ton of left-wing conspiracy theories, AIDS being a CIA invented disease to kill black people is a pretty major one that has lead to a lot of people dying.
I agree that @Monty’s characterization seemed over the top to me when I read it. But …
At the core of all CT beliefs is 2 things:
There’s a powerful hidden “They” out there pulling the strings.
“They” are out to hurt me/Us.
IOW, there’s an overactive sense of in-group/out-group awareness and an overactive sense of paranoia.
Once can certainly see how there’d be a lot of overlap between folks who’re big on those psychological traits and folks who’re big on racial prejudice.
My bottom line: I don’t think racism is causative for CT belief or vice versa. But I think they’re probably well correlated.
The conspiracy isn’t that the US government has influence in Hollywood, rather that in order to get an MPAA rating a film MUST be screened by Department of Defense officials who are given final approval.
What makes you think that was the real reason? It was s sunken alien craft - and the Russians were in on it. The sub story was just a cover story on the cover story of the manganese mining.
The most “outlandish” claim that turned out to be true was the NSA recording your personal phone calls, which was often used as government conspiracy shorthand back in the 80s/90s. The 2001 video game Grand Theft Auto 3 had a conspiracy theorist character bring it up.
You beat me to it. I was poised to suggest reading your posts for extra-special CT prancing. You da best! I eagerly await your latest sequel updates. Better than Netflix or Hulu.
To paraphrase Kevin Costner, “If they will come, someone will build it” . Conspiracy theories are a subset of the Entertainment-Industrial Complex. If a prospect for sales appears to be lying down the road, someone will be strip-mining it.
I wish. This woman in my critique group believes this. And in a flat earth. And is an anti-vaxxer, of course. And is a fundamentalist Christian, in some weird church.
She is writing a kids book about the end times. Her character, who is 14, has a dream about the flat earth, and the next day has a dream about the lizards. And then says the second dream confirms the first.
I said, not quite, and it is clear that she doesn’t have the slightest idea about critical thinking.
