# What conspiracy theories do you believe? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 23, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858 "2008-06-23T00:35:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/41 "2008-06-23T08:22:31Z")
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were really [lost cosmonauts](http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/default.htm) before Yuri Gagarin’s flight. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/42 "2008-06-23T08:36:40Z")
[QUOTE=DMark] I tend to believe theories that there have been some great innovations in energy saving motors for cars, but that the large oil companies have worked hard to keep them off the market. And considering billions of dollars in oil profits have been made recently, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to think lots of money could have been paid out to stop/buy patents for new designs and tuck them away. [/QUOTE] That’s based on the assumption that the oil companies are more powerful than the auto manufacturers, which I’m not sure is true. And not just the auto manufacturers - nobody likes paying a lot for gas. If, say, the airlines found out they could save several billion dollars a month on fuel costs, do you really think some oil company could outbid them for a patent? ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/43 "2008-06-23T08:44:56Z")
I believe the majority of prisoners who “hang themselves” had “help”. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/44 "2008-06-23T08:49:00Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] Interesting. I’ve never heard that one before, but it makes sense. [/QUOTE] The style seemed very similar to the way that Mordechai Vanunu was grabbed, plus it came among increased economic and military cooperation between the two nations (which doesn’t prove anything, but caught my attention). ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/45 "2008-06-23T08:50:38Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] That’s based on the assumption that the oil companies are more powerful than the auto manufacturers, which I’m not sure is true. And not just the auto manufacturers - nobody likes paying a lot for gas. If, say, the airlines found out they could save several billion dollars a month on fuel costs, do you really think some oil company could outbid them for a patent? [/QUOTE] I worked for many years in a film studio for an attorney that worked solely on patents and trademarks. I learned a lot. When trademarks, and patents, are filed, attorneys quickly find out what they are and how they effect their cases in court. Trust me when I say they are the first to find them, especially if they are in their particular field. They have paralegals who do nothing but search for such patents (and trademarks). As he mentioned to me, if Uncle Fred actually found a tablet you could put in water and create gasoline ( hypothetical), and that patent appeared, someone would go to Uncle Fred quickly, pay him a bundle of money, and then hold the rights to all the patents. They could easily later claim the patent was “useless” and bury them in a vault. Who is going to pay the money to verify if a patent works, especially if it is already owned by someone not willing to sell it? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/46 "2008-06-23T08:54:14Z")
It’s interesting because besides its close relations with the Turkish military which often has its own agenda, different from that of the Turkish government) Israel has long backed certain Kurdish organizations, as part of its policy of supporting non-Arab groups in the Middle East. Ocalan was allied with Syria, wasn’t he? That helps explain things. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/47 "2008-06-23T08:56:34Z")
[QUOTE=DMark] I worked for many years in a film studio for an attorney that worked solely on patents and trademarks. I learned a lot. When trademarks, and patents, are filed, attorneys quickly find out what they are and how they effect their cases in court. Trust me when I say they are the first to find them, especially if they are in their particular field. They have paralegals who do nothing but search for such patents (and trademarks). As he mentioned to me, if Uncle Fred actually found a tablet you could put in water and create gasoline ( hypothetical), and that patent appeared, someone would go to Uncle Fred quickly, pay him a bundle of money, and then hold the rights to all the patents. They could easily later claim the patent was “useless” and bury them in a vault. Who is going to pay the money to verify if a patent works, especially if it is already owned by someone not willing to sell it? [/QUOTE] Why wouldn’t Fred hold out for the highest bidder? And aren’t all patents made public? ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/48 "2008-06-23T09:14:18Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] Why wouldn’t Fred hold out for the highest bidder? And aren’t all patents made public? [/QUOTE] I really don’t want to hijack this thread, but to answer your questions: 1. Show up on Uncle Fred’s door, offer him more money than he has ever envisioned in his lifetime, represent some company he knows to be “big” and he is going to say no? Plus, he might be convinced his invention will actually be mass-produced at some point. Plus, Uncle Fred might just have sent his idea and patent to that particular company and be waiting for them to respond! “I have a great invention - let me sent this to Exxon!” 2. Yes, they are all public, but again, let’s stick with Uncle Fred’s gas pill. There are hundreds of crackpots out there who have wild ideas and get patents - and if the patent, in this example, really works but is now owned by say, Exxon - who is going to spend the money and bother to see if it works? Why would you? Like Exxon would sell you rights? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/49 "2008-06-23T09:25:42Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan] Why wouldn’t Fred hold out for the highest bidder? And aren’t all patents made public? [/QUOTE] They certainly are, as \*\*DMark \*\* himself makes clear. What is not clear is why this particular company that wants to bury the patent finds it, but others who would be interested in its _propagation_ rather than its burial do not. Plus once you invent something and have filed for a patent, you seek publicity because you want investors, so the secret would be out before the patent was bought and buried. Buying a patent doesn’t make something confidential, it just stops others from producing the patented thing commercially. Plus why is this company willing to pay Fred heaps for something that they don’t know works? The only answer could be that it must be obvious from the patent itself that it works. If it’s obvious from the patent that it works, then anyone can read the patent (which is a public document) and the secret is out. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/50 "2008-06-23T09:30:43Z")
[QUOTE=DMark] I really don’t want to hijack this thread, but to answer your questions: 1. Show up on Uncle Fred’s door, offer him more money than he has ever envisioned in his lifetime, represent some company he knows to be “big” and he is going to say no? Plus, he might be convinced his invention will actually be mass-produced at some point. Plus, Uncle Fred might just have sent his idea and patent to that particular company and be waiting for them to respond! “I have a great invention - let me sent this to Exxon!” [/QUOTE] First of all, you’re making the assumption that all scientific types have lousy business sense, something I know to be false. Second of all, most researchers don’t work on stuff in their basements, and they don’t finance it by mortgaging their house (they may try, but it probably won’t be enough). Some venture capitalist probably provided the money for them to get as far as they did, and _he_ certainly won’t allow a product potentially worth billions of dollars to be snaped up for what he knows is pocket change. He may steal it himself, of course, but he definitely won’t allow it to be suppressed. I don’t know. I guess I have more faith in human greed than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/51 "2008-06-23T10:57:06Z")
[QUOTE=Leaper] Read what he asked again. I think he was more making the point of a lot of other conspiracies requiring both high levels of government knowledge and information that had to be collected through lower levels: why has no one blown the whistle with specific allegations about this? [/QUOTE] They have; people don’t care, or they believe it was simple incompetence ( understandably ), or they refuse to believe it simply because it’s been labeled a “conspiracy theory”, which automatically makes it wrong regardless of plausibility or evidence. There’s a much better cover for a conspiracy in this country than secrecy : the automatic rejection of anything labeled “conspiracy”. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/52 "2008-06-23T12:06:42Z")
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim] Missed it by _that_ much! There is indeed a grand conspiracy to make us believe outlandish conspiracies, but the intent is something else. The intent is to emulsify our brains, to make us so mentally unstable that we can’t tell fact from fiction, and so we will buy whatever is set on the table in front of us. Ultimately the intent is to make us the stupidest possible consumers: of products and of ideas. That way we dispose of our income ever faster to keep the rich rich. [/QUOTE] :dubious: Okay, I’m in for that one. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/53 "2008-06-23T12:17:20Z")
That the creation of the Federal Reserve System, the progressive income tax, our entry into WWI, the Bolshevik Revolution. the Wall Street crash, and the rise of both Hitler and FDR all involved the same circle of Euro-Anglo-American banking & business interests who wanted to finagle things into a managed “democratic corporate socialist” New World Order. The CFR, the Trilateral Commission & the Bildeberg Conferences are the more well known manifestations of this Establishment. Where I differ from the really conspiratorial view is that I believe that such things as the Great Depression, the tyranny of Hitler & Communist expansionism were unintended conseqences of Establishment manipulation rather than deliberate projects, and that they don’t desire a totalitarian system. If they have dystopian ambitions, it’s more to build a Brave New World, not a 1984. That there has existed alongside the human race a shadow species, maybe more than one, which is responsible for for the idea of demigods, elementals, the faerie folk, daemons, and is now behind some of the ET-UFO phenomena. ---
**Author:** ![Soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/54 "2008-06-23T12:21:56Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon] Under what false pretenses did the U.S. invade Afghanistan? [/QUOTE] Sorry, I went off to bed and left my post orphaned. I always felt that our stated intention of capturing Bin Laden and attacking Al Qaeda and the Taliban (in Afghanistan) weren’t too objectionable. However, when the war in Iraq started as an extension of the Global War On Terror, it made me think that Afghanistan was never a legitimate war to begin with – rather, that it was a political move designed to act as a stepping stone to finishing daddy’s war in Iraq. The right thing for the wrong reasons, if you will. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/55 "2008-06-23T12:38:25Z")
I genuinely believe that Dr David Kelly’s death was astonishingly suspicious. And I have a niggle about Robin Cook’s, too. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/56 "2008-06-23T12:52:02Z")
I believe that Sherlock Holmes really DID die at Reichenbach Falls, and that they’ve been using an imposter ever since. I mean, the man has mellowed. He has perfectly useless knowledge and BRAGS about it, whereas before he didn’t care if Copernicus was right. And he doesn’t use cocaine or any other drugs anymore. Isn’t it Obvious? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/57 "2008-06-23T13:40:16Z")
[Moderator Underoos On]State your conspiracy beliefs here. Debate them with each other elsewhere.[/Moderator Underoos On] ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/58 "2008-06-23T14:44:53Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] How is it an extraordinary claim ? They said they wanted something like it to happen [/quote] False. Unless you’re talking about something other than the famous PNAC document, which absolutely did not say they “wanted” it to happen. If that’s the case - cite? > [@Der Trihs](#): > > They are also completely ruthless and amoral. Opinion. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > And it’s not like any of them need to fear being punished even if discovered. Laughably unrealistic and you know it. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Some indicators : Bush calling the state Department off Osama as soon as he got into office Cite? > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Ashcroft refusing to use commercial flights. Pretty sure this is a UL > [@Der Trihs](#): > > The insistence on setting up anti-aircraft defenses for things like the G-7 summit. Can you explain how this is relevant? I don’t understand. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > no, there’s no smoking gun, but there never will be because the Democrats are to gutless to even look. Why are the Democrats the ones who need to look? If there is evidence, why don’t YOU gather it and present it to the proper authorities? > [@Der Trihs](#): > > When someone says they want something to happen, and it happens, it’s not that unreasonable to suspect that they arranged it to happen. And while it would be better to wait for a real investigation, there never will be one. And he’d just pardon himself anyway. I don’t think even the president could pardon himself from treason, mass murder, etc. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > **They have; people don’t care** , or they believe it was simple incompetence ( understandably ), or they refuse to believe it simply because it’s been labeled a “conspiracy theory”, which automatically makes it wrong regardless of plausibility or evidence. There’s a much better cover for a conspiracy in this country than secrecy : the automatic rejection of anything labeled “conspiracy”. Cite? Look I know you need to believe this so bad that it hurts, but when you start saying things like no one cares if Bush was behind 9/11 it’s offensive, so pony up some proof or tone it down a little bit, ok? ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/59 "2008-06-23T15:03:32Z")
I believe that the nuke cruisers, from _Long Beach_, to _Arkansas_ were decommed in the 90s because they weren’t sexy enough for the “Nuke=Evil” thinking to overcome. Not because there weren’t benefits to keeping them in service. The other rational reasons for the decision were backed up into that emotional response. ETA: Certainly decomming _South Carolina_ within years of refueling her was economically questionable, at the very least. (I think _California_ was on the same approximate refueling cycle, too, and also was decommed with a new core.) ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858/60 "2008-06-23T15:06:00Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] I genuinely believe that Dr David Kelly’s death was astonishingly suspicious. [/QUOTE] Me too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conspiracy-theories-do-you-believe/453858.md?page=4)