We all love conspiracy theories, right? Well, maybe not. But they keep popping up in all flavours on the boards like a hardy perennial.
What I want to know is which popular conspiracy theories do you think “Well, maybe they’re onto something…?”, where you think the ‘official story’ is doubtful.
Poll is multiple choice, so pick all those that you give any credence to. I’ve put every popular conspiracy theory I’ve heard of and those in the top ten lists - use the ubiquitous ‘other’ option if you give credence to something that could be called a conspiracy theory but that I’ve missed.
I think the possibility is high that Earth has been visited by non-Earth intelligence… sometime in the last billion years. Proof? Not a bit.
I believe the pharmaceutical industry manages results and discoveries to their maximum financial benefit, long and short term, and this includes discoveries locked up in secret… for now.
Diana was unquestionably murdered by the paparazzi. Their insane actions led to Henri Paul’s high rate of speed and evasive maneuvering and may have directly caused the crash.
I’ll reserve comment (for the moment) on the major conspiracy I believe in. It’s not secret, merely ignored and disbelieved.
The rest of the list, and most CTs, and most variants of the ones I am willing to give faint and limited credence to, are unprocessed horseshit driven by the mad desire to be “in the know” even in the most absurd and self-cancelling way.
With the exception of global warming, all are horseshit.
Much of the research in global warming / climate change is legitimate. But I also believe there’s a strong leftist component to it, and it biases some of the research.
Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t entirely responsible for everything written under his name, but I think that’s more likely a result of sloppy 17th Century publishing rather than any vast conspiracy.
I voted for all horseshit but I don’t really have enough information on the Shakespeare one to give an informed opinion. I’m leaning towards horseshit but could be swayed with facts if there are any.
I believe 100% that the universe is teeming with life including other intelligent life. I think the chances that any have visited this planet are minuscule. I’m sure that the idea the government is hiding ET is total horseshit.
I tend to go along with these two [so are WE in a conspiracy together?:dubious::D]
I would love to know for certain that we are not alone in the universe, I like to think that there are others out there. I don’t think they have ever visited though perhaps they will pick up out electronic pollution at some point. Could they be beneficial? Maybe, though knowing humanity, I fear we would end up like the African tribes and the American Indians - slaves or dead. To Serve Man might not be a wry SF joke.
And while I do not think the death of Diana was deliberate [which is what to me a conspiracy means] it is directly attributable to the paparazzi chasing her all the time she is in public. The driver being impaired contributed as well. But the actual accident was an accident, nothing more.
As to the Big Pharm industry hiding stuff, I can believe that they can be working on something and have it be very promising and not release it so the can maximize profits. I doubt they would hide a cure for cancer or AIDS, but a cure for the common cold, yes. They would get so much popular publicity coming out with a cure for cancer that their stock would go through the roof but curing a cold, they would still make more money with patent medicine nostrums than a single pill/injectible cure.
I think Obama is an Atheist, though Michelle may be a Christian. I believe that a LOT of scientists and politicians who identify as Christian are secretly atheist.
Many intelligent people, including at least four current members of the U.S. Supreme Court(*) believe Shakespeare did not write the plays and sonnets that bear his name. I’m not sure one way or the other, but the case is quite persuasive and raises fascinating mysteries whether Shakespeare was the author or not.
I tried to start a thread on the topic 3 years ago or so, but was answered only with a wide variety of insults. Many of the responses were non sequiturs proving that opponents of the hoax theory hadn’t the slightest clue what that theory was. :smack: My thread was intended to address specifically the contents of the Sonnets, many of which make no sense at all if Shakespeare wrote them, but are almost autobiographical if written by Oxford. In the thread, not a single response addressed the contents of those sonnets. :smack:
(* - ETA: No, this is not the usual 5-4 SCOTUS divide. The court’s most liberal and most conservative Justices are both Oxfordians.)
You forgot one of my favorites: The CIA teamed up with Howard Hughes to recover a sunken Soviet submarine under the cover story that they were mining the sea floor for manganese nodules.
And as I noticed from other reports, the problem for the Earl of Oxford is that he has the same one as he has with the last plays of Shakespeare: they, like many sonnets, were published years after the Earl of Oxford died.
So, again, I do agree with Stephen Fry.
“I thought Caroline Spurgeon settled this in 1935 with her master work Shakespeare’s Imagery. There seems to be absolutely no doubt to anybody who reads Shakespeare, and is familiar with the text, that these are the works of a countryman. This is a man who knows about kites and fields and it’s certainly not the work of an aristocrat.” - Stephen Fry
I thought it was now accepted that this actually did happen, or am I getting it mixed up with another event? Isn’t there actual footage of the US burying the recovered Soviet sailors bodies at sea?
Agreed, I do think that a lot of people have trouble accepting that someone who is rich, powerful and famous can simply die in an accident like everyone else. I mean George Bush was almost finished off by something as mundane as a pretzel, can you imagine the conspiracy theories if he had died?
I think its almost certain that there is life of some kind out there, intelligent life is probably much rarer but the universe is so big there’s probably plenty of it. The problem with having discussions along these lines is that so many people have had their minds filled with Star Trek and/or the common conspiracy theory image of alien life that they can’t look past that.
Well, go on, you can’t leave us hanging like that!
I am a bit curious about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I do think it’s at least possible that we don’t know the whole truth about that one.
There was more to 9/11 than al-Qaeda: In a very limited sense. I’m fairly sure that Bush and company had a good idea that something was coming, and deliberately looked the other way because they wanted a terrorist attack they could use to excuse a war on Iraq. But I don’t think they were behind it or anything like that, or even had real details on what was coming.
Pharmaceutical companies are keeping down treatments for cancer and more: They are deliberately avoiding research on things like vaccines, since they aren’t as profitable as chronic/lifetime treatments. And they abuse the patent system by researching drugs, patenting them and then just sitting on the patent, because they find stifling innovation more profitable (it doesn’t require retooling factories, for example). But none of that is particularly secret, or in the latter case even restricted to the pharmaceutical companies; lots of companies use the patent system to prevent new technology from being implemented. I don’t think it at all qualifies as a conspiracy really; it’s gaming the system, not conspiracy.
Yes. I was trying to make it sound as outlandish as the rest. For some reason, this one just hasn’t attracted as many fans over the years as the others. But I still like it; what it lacks in popularity it makes up for in actually-happenedness.
The court’s most liberal and most conservative Justices are both Oxfordians.)