# Conspiracy theories **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 25, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161 "2013-08-25T22:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/61 "2013-08-26T23:26:02Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > I think it’s possible that car companies (or oil companies) have sabotaged the electric car. The only thing holding back the electric car is a better battery (cheaper, more capacity, faster to charge). Big Oil and Big Auto would have a hell of a time trying to suppress that tech when it has such a huge potential market elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/62 "2013-08-26T23:29:39Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Fine. If anyone wants a Shakespeare Authorship debate _in a different thread_, I volunteer to be pro-Shakespeare, and to not laugh or make fun of anti-Stratfordians. Well, that is a tall order. 🙂 (That smilie is for what I have seen in this thread) I did concentrate on the point that the issue of the sonnets was not dealt with in the other thread; and that thread, far from just being full of jokes, it was also full of counterpoints. As it turns out, the issue of the sonnets was already looked at, the point is that when I see those items I linked cavalierly dismissed here I have to say that what the experts on Shakespeare report is still the most valid position. And based on more recent evidence found it seems to me that the ones that propose that Shakespeare did not wrote most of his works to be the ones that need to get much more evidence than just very nice theories. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/63 "2013-08-26T23:33:48Z")
Not really as earth-shattering as the above examples. One conspiracy I half-believed was the NBA conspiracy theory. Large-market and popular teams had outcomes determined by outside forces, like TV or the refs. I thought the 2002 Lakers-Kings playoff game was the fishiest, due to the enormous disparity in fouls called. Turned out it was absolutely true: Referee Tim Donaghy did influence the game! The strangest part: Nothing happened. Yes, the ref went to jail, but I don’t recall any major backlash other than “he was a lone wolf, nothing to see here”. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/64 "2013-08-26T23:34:09Z")
[What does ‘blue blood is black blood’ mean?](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=+What+does+%27blue+blood+is+black+blood%27+mean%3F) Royal Moors hidden from white posterity, [if I understand it properly](http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28268). ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/65 "2013-08-26T23:59:12Z")
What about chemtrails, people? We’re being poisoned by chemicals (we don’t know what kind) being sprayed from the sky (by we’re not sure whom) for obviously nefarious reasons (though we’re not sure why). I work with a guy who belives this, and he is a mental gnat. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/66 "2013-08-27T00:12:41Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > We all love conspiracy theories, right? Well, maybe not. But they keep popping up in all flavours on the boards like a hardy perennial. Somehow “hardy perennial” is too benevolent a term. Russian thistle? Flesh-seeking zombie? Well, “industrial-grade horseshit” wasn’t bad. 🙂 I think there might be something to the claim that conspiracy theories are a conspiracy dreamed up by our Unseen Overlords, to distract us from getting involved in productive activities that might threaten the Power Structure. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/67 "2013-08-27T02:19:32Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Well, that is a tall order. 🙂 (That smilie is for what I have seen in this thread) Well, right - on the SDMB, pro-Shakespeareans outnumber anti’s by a very large margin. But I thought \*\*septimus \*\*and \*\*Trinopus \*\*complained that their arguments are dismissed too easily. I’d be happy to go through each one without any eye-rolls or anything. ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/68 "2013-08-27T02:28:16Z")
The break down of a marriage is almost always the result of a multitude of problems and differences. It was like that for me, but I can tell you **with conviction** that it became a defining moment in our relationship the day that my husband (now ex) came home from a talk about **chemtrails** given by some crazy author at a local bookstore. I was hanging out with our boy (then 13 years old) when his dad began telling us everything he had learned. We both sat there listening to him talk while our jaws were dropping lower and lower. I think that my face/nose/eyes were about as scrunched up as they could possibly get. My boy was shaking his head and wanted to interrupt, but was trying hard to be respectful. When I realized that he actually believed what he had been fed, and that he was trying his damnedest to convince us that they are real - I stopped him and said, “Ok, enough. I cannot listen to this shit for one more minute.” He accused me of sticking my head in the sand. I dismissed his comment, walked away before an argument could even get started and knew at that very moment that I could never spend the rest of my life with him. For that reason (and **many** others) I have been divorced for almost three years after 17 years of marriage…from the man whom I once considered smart…and sane. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/69 "2013-08-27T03:30:51Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Well, right - on the SDMB, pro-Shakespeareans outnumber anti’s by a very large margin. > > But I thought \*\*septimus \*\*and \*\*Trinopus \*\*complained that their arguments are dismissed too easily. I’d be happy to go through each one without any eye-rolls or anything. Worse, many of the anti’s are roaring crackpots. And, worse yet, there are the Baconians and the DeVereians and the Marloweists and so on. I started reading Joe Sobran’s book with two very strong prejudices against him. First, he was a political essayist whose opinions I strongly detested. And, secondly, I thought the whole idea of Shakespeare authorship revisionism was horsepoop. Sobran, in his book, quietly and logically convinced me – not that the idea was right, but that the idea wasn’t horsepoop. He put forward some solid, cogent, reasoned arguments. He convinced me, against my will! Damn, that’s good writing! ETA: The only reason I’m discussing any of this is to suggest that the idea isn’t a “conspiracy theory.” It is, rather, an issue of possible misattribution of authorship. It doesn’t require a conspiracy. My examples of Clarke and Mozart show that this sort of thing can happen – has happened! Simple errors in cataloguing. I’m not here defending the idea per se, only trying to get it re-characterized as something other than a CT. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/70 "2013-08-27T04:18:59Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Well, right - on the SDMB, pro-Shakespeareans outnumber anti’s by a very large margin. > > But I thought \*\*septimus \*\*and \*\*Trinopus \*\*complained that their arguments are dismissed too easily. I’d be happy to go through each one without any eye-rolls or anything. Well, there may be something about some misattribution, but I think that unwillingly we are trowing a huge bone here early in the game regarding the bit about the “pro-Shakespeareans outnumbering the anti’s in the SDMB”,\*\* it gives IMHO the impression that this is not the case elsewhere and specially where it counts\*\*, and that is a very basic maneuver of many conspiracy and pseudosciences out there, proponents (not you of course) of very alternative theories attempt to convince people outside academia (where they lost the argument many times) that there is division among the expert scholars and historians, when that is not the case. > **[Shakespeare authorship](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship)** > > The Shakespeare authorship question, also known as "Anti-Stratfordianism," is a fringe theory asserting that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was not the author of the plays attributed to him. First developed as an idea in the mid-19th... > [@](#): > > The Shakespeare authorship question, also known as “Anti-Stratfordianism,” is the fringe theory that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was not the author of the plays attributed to him. First developed as an idea in the mid-nineteenth century,[1] the theory gradually took wing in late Victorian times, establishing a prolific literary vogue for amateur historians and a whodunit-addicted readership,[2] whose mostly unreadable products now tally up to several thousand books and articles. > > The most common reason given is that Shakespeare was an illiterate rustic and rapacious hustler devoid of both the necessary knowledge and poetic sensibility shown in the works. Since, as is true also of most of Shakespeare’s theatrical contemporaries, little is known concerning Shakespeare’s life, especially during what scholars call Shakespeare’s “lost years”, anti-Stratfordians argue ex silentio that Shakespeare could not have acquired the background or education necessary to write plays that include a knowledge of foreign languages, familiarity with courtly maneuvering, military and nautical terminology, legal terms, medicine and other esoteric matters.[3] Like most conspiracy theories based on negative evidence and conjectures of the putative existence of secretive coteries of scheming insiders, Anti-Stratfordianism is very hard to disprove conclusively, because complex counterfactual histories cannot be, by their nature, easily confuted by the evidence actually surviving in our meagre documentary records. > > Numerous candidates and group or writers’ syndicate theories have been proposed, although only a handful have received serious attention. The most prominent candidate is Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, whose putative authorship of Shakespeare’s work was the subject of a Hollywood clanger, the tediously convoluted 2011 movie flop, Anonymous, directed by Roland Emmerich.[4][5] > > Hardly any professional scholar takes these theories seriously.[6] They generally find anti-Stratfordian arguments puerile in their contempt for rational method and the careful scholarly evaluation of evidence, and usually just ignore them.[7] This bored neglect accounts for the vein of resentment which runs through anti-Stratfordian screeds.[8] However, after a century and a half marked by an egregious failure to attract serious academic notice, Anti-Stratfordians have become media-savvy and invest considerable efforts in exploiting modern mass media in order to spread their message. In bypassing academia, they hope to argue their case directly before a broad public that knows little of Shakespeare, Elizabethan history and the standard methodologies of scholarly research. By intimating and diffusing a sense that there has been a gross centuries-long cover-up by the cultural and critical establishment of a scandalously repressed truth,[9] they appear to be trying to mobilise public opinion to pressure academia itself to take them seriously. A New York Times survey of 265 Shakespeare professors from a random sample of U.S. colleges and universities in April 2007 found that 11% (28) answered “possible” and 6% (15) answered “yes,” when asked if there were good reason to question whether Shakespeare of Stratford was the principal author of the plays.[10] In the same survey, 93% of those surveyed called Anti-Stratfordianism a “theory without convincing evidence” (61%) or an “outright waste of time and classroom resources” (32%). And here I’m just saying: Many people that investigate pseudoscience and CTs, have pointed out that one very effective way to deflate a crock is to inform others about the actual levels of support a fringe view has among the experts. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/71 "2013-08-27T09:45:50Z")
Hi **GIGObuster**. You post lots and lots of links to pro-Stratfordian pages. _I see no response addressing my question: **Demonstrate that you’ve studied the anti-Stratfordian arguments.** _ The previous thread teemed with insults and non sequiturs, and demonstrated that very few of the participating Dopers had even a slight clue about Oxfordian or other anti-Stratfordian arguments. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/72 "2013-08-27T10:14:34Z")
Lacking any expertise and confused by conflicting claims, I’m uncertain about the Authorship. (One of the many remarkable claims in the earlier thread was that that must be a lie: everyone falls into one of two viewpoints: certainty that Shakespeare or certainty that he did not.) That’s why I took the opportunity to ask specific questions in the prior thread; questions that would shed light for me and would surely be addressed in some of the myriads of dissertations. I was met with lots of “Why do you want to know?” “What stupid misconception are you operating under?” …\* but never an actual answer to any of my questions.\* For me, interest has moved from the Authorship mystery itself to amazement at the diction and argumentation that appears in Internet debates on the topic. May I conduct a simple poll before going away quietly? I’m curious whether fellow Dopers would give greater credence to my position or that of **Musicat** in the following exchange: > [@septimus](#): > > I was not suggesting those Justices have any special authority on the matter. But it did seem more demonstrative to cite four of only nine specific respected intellectuals, rather than four arbitrary respected intellectuals. One might guess (:dubious:) that a S.C. Justice would be at least a bit reluctant to be labeled a crackpot. > > I strongly doubt you can find another “conspiracy” on OP’s list with four (or even a single?) S.C. Justices in support. > [@Musicat](#): > > Maybe you should begin looking. Who knows what evil lurks in the mind of our esteemed justices? > > Let’s put it another way. If you had cancer, and 4 out of 5 Supreme Court Justices said this red pill will cure it, would you swallow one without further ado? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/73 "2013-08-27T12:14:44Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Many people that investigate pseudoscience and CTs, have pointed out that one very effective way to deflate a crock is to inform others about the actual levels of support a fringe view has among the experts. This may well be an effective strategy when appealing to those with critical thinking capacity. The response you typically get from the CT-prone is that the small fringe view represents Brave Mavericks who defy the lockstep opinions of their colleagues (who actually agree, doncha know, but are too intimidated by the Man to admit it). Their other counter is that those expressing the tiny minority view must be respected because of their academic credentials (which sound good, until you realize that their degrees and expertise are usually unrelated to the field upon which they’re expounding). And of course, “experts” is a dirty word for some people, who think their own Google Research trumps years of training and practical experience in a particular field. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/74 "2013-08-27T13:57:13Z")
> [@Arrendajo](#): > > What about chemtrails, people? We’re being poisoned by chemicals (we don’t know what kind) being sprayed from the sky (by we’re not sure whom) for obviously nefarious reasons (though we’re not sure why). I work with a guy who belives this, and he is a mental gnat. Yeah, for me chemtrails fall into a whole different category from, say, the JFK conspiracy theory. I’m not convinced that there’s enough evidence to sustain a JFK theory, but the core theory makes sense. Chemtrails make \*no \*sense at all. If I’m getting it right, The Man wants to test the effects of some chemical, right? So he sprays it into the air at random and then…what? Checks the rates of absolutely everything in the area for the next hundred years, to see if they vary from some other area? How do you know who was exposed to the chemical, given that the wind is gonna blow it around? How do you know how many of the people you’re surveying moved into town after the spraying, or happened to be out of town that week? How on earth would your data mean anything? And why on earth would you bother? ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/75 "2013-08-27T14:13:45Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > May I conduct a simple poll before going away quietly? I’m curious whether fellow Dopers would give greater credence to my position or that of **Musicat** in the following exchange: I don’t give a flip what a bunch of legally-trained individuals think about literary history. I have no idea why you think this bolsters your argument. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/76 "2013-08-27T14:33:05Z")
I checked the equine scatology box above, but I will note that two of the items on the list may have something to them, albeit not in the typical PCT vein. 1. [There are a (probably small) number Muslims who would consider the President a Muslim by virtue of his father being a Muslim](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=607821). I have seen NO evidence that the President considers himself a Muslim in any meaningful sense of the word. 2. It is probable that something major, that is still classified (i.e., beyond the scope of Project Mogul), happened at Roswell in 1947, but I do not believe that it had anything to do with extraterrestrials. The secrecy maintained was just too intense for a crashed spy balloon, and given the since-acknowledged government activities in period involving atomic weapons and germ warfare, I find it parsiminous to believe (or at least not dismiss) that they were up to something with ramifications that would still cause a backlash today. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/77 "2013-08-27T14:42:45Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > [What does ‘blue blood is black blood’ mean?](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=+What+does+%27blue+blood+is+black+blood%27+mean%3F) > > Royal Moors hidden from white posterity, [if I understand it properly](http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28268). This fellow launched an epically bad thread on the SDMB some time ago. There may be even an itty bitty bit to it in that Northern European monarchs may have had more Southern European/North African ancestry than their typical subject by virtue of marriage alliances with far-flung noble families, but the idea as expounded is a train wreck. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/78 "2013-08-27T14:53:05Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It is, rather, an issue of possible misattribution of authorship. It doesn’t require a conspiracy. My examples of Clarke and Mozart show that this sort of thing can happen – has happened! Simple errors in cataloguing. I admit to knowing nothing about your Clarke and Mozart examples. I will throw out that the first folio clearly calls Shakespeare the author of all the plays therein, that it was edited by people who personally knew Shakespeare and the workings of the Lord Chamberlain’s/King’s Men, and that the attribution also agrees with many of the play printed in quarto editions previously (I don’t mean to imply that some disagree - just many quartos were published without any attribution). These guys wouldn’t have accidentally miscatalogued something. Of course, playwriting then wasn’t a man alone in a quiet room affair. Many parts were contributed by many. I liken it to a band working on a song that one member has written. But none of the people who could have disputed the attribution. Fletcher was credited when it was warranted - whatever standard they had for deciding if a play was co-written or not. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/79 "2013-08-27T16:18:38Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > 1. It is probable that something major, that is still classified (i.e., beyond the scope of Project Mogul), happened at Roswell in 1947, but I do not believe that it had anything to do with extraterrestrials. The secrecy maintained was just too intense for a crashed spy balloon, and given the since-acknowledged government activities in period involving atomic weapons and germ warfare, I find it parsiminous to believe (or at least not dismiss) that they were up to something with ramifications that would still cause a backlash today. A couple of good books have been written about the events, one by Joe Nickell I believe, that are as thorough and well-documented as necessary to clear away any mystery. It was a simple incident, blown out of proportion and then wrapped in the smoke and mirrors of Cold War paranoia. Remember, Mogul was an extremely highly classified project dealing with the most sensitive issues of the Cold War - it needs no dressing up to see why the AF and US reacted as they did. Like the enormous amount of accretions attached to the basic facts of Bermuda Triangle events, Roswell had a number of separate things attached to it - such the balloon dummies from a later time and different project, and some aspects of the supposed coverup that were cover stories for other secret projects. The “Roswell Incident” boils down to the simple bullet list above, coupled with expanding paranoia and misunderstanding and then the addition of unrelated events. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161/80 "2013-08-27T16:23:18Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > [What does ‘blue blood is black blood’ mean?](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=+What+does+%27blue+blood+is+black+blood%27+mean%3F) > > Royal Moors hidden from white posterity, [if I understand it properly](http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28268). Pull up a chair, open up some popcorn and [enjoy](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=544874). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-theories/667161.md?page=5)