# What is the biggest event that is accepted by all conspiracy theorists at face value? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2021, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158 "2021-02-17T19:58:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![tavaritz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/71e660/32.png) [@tavaritz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tavaritz)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/61 "2021-02-19T21:27:11Z")
No. I’m rather suggesting that all CT believers belive in bible eg. are some sort of abrahamic religion affected. I’ve not heard of a single non-believer CT’s. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/62 "2021-02-19T23:27:19Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > Sounds flippant but serial killers are mortal too. I hear you. I always wondered how Jack the Ripper managed not to nick himself, then it occurred to me that maybe he _didn’t_, and died of septicemia in the ward of a charity hospital, and was buried in a pauper’s grave. If I ever write a JtR novel, that’s how it’s going to end. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/63 "2021-02-19T23:39:55Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > How about the guilt, as well as body count, of some major serial killers? Leaving aside a few questionable investigations that have actually been reopened by authorities, does anyone question the guilt of a Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway, or John Wayne Gacy? People certainly believe that the authorities have attributed murders to serial killers that a particular killer didn’t commit. And not without reason. Look at how many murders were attributed to Henry Lee Lucas, who would confess to anything for a pack of cigarettes. And (I’ll look for a cite, but I really can’t remember where I read it) there are some who believe that the authorities closed some cases in Washington by conveniently deciding that Gary Ridgeway was responsible. Not a lot, two or three, nothing like Lucas. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/64 "2021-02-19T23:41:16Z")
> [@tavaritz](#): > > No. I’m rather suggesting that all CT believers belive in bible eg. are some sort of abrahamic religion affected. I’ve not heard of a single non-believer CT’s. Here’s a [Hindu conspiracy theory.](https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/the-love-jihad-conspiracy-theory/) Here’s a list of [Japanese conspiracy theorists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_conspiracy_theorists). Most Japanese don’t subscribe to Abrahamic religions. And [QAnon is spreading in Japan.](https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/qanon-is-alive-and-well-in-japan/) Here’s a list of [conspiracy theories in China.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_in_China) Conspiracy theories are not confined to one religion or ethnic group. They are present in many societies. ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/65 "2021-02-19T23:57:13Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Leaving aside a few questionable investigations that have actually been reopened by authorities, does anyone question the guilt of a Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway, or John Wayne Gacy? So I picked Ted Bundy at random, googled “ted Bundy David icke” and yep, David Icke believes that the Illuminati may have made Bundy kill with mind control. Spoilered link is to a sketchy-looking ebook site, but I doubt that someone went to the trouble of making a fake version of Icke’s _Bloodlines of the Illuminati_ to, um, make him look crazy or something. “Bundy” first shows up on page 18. [David Icke - Bloodlines of the Illuminati](https://en.calameo.com/read/0001935741960895b5f72) Icke notes the ominous fact that _every book on Ted Bundy had been stolen from his local library_, an obvious sign of Illuminati coverup and not, y’know, the result of what teenagers tend to do with transgressive reading material. [quote=“Pardel-Lux, post:36, topic:933158, full:true”]JAnon! That is good. Do _they_ (ominous music!) call it that or is it your own derision?[/quote] I didn’t invent it; the term is used by people who study QAnon, but I think it may have come from the community itself. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/66 "2021-02-20T00:02:53Z")
Once upon a time David Icke was a respected sports reporter for the BBC Wonder when he started to descend into a wacko ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/67 "2021-02-20T00:28:47Z")
I am skeptical that Icke believes the stuff in the books he sells. I once saw him interviewed on a show that was about the Freemasons. He never mentioned reptilian aliens. This suggests that he tailors his wack to meet the expectations of the audience that is paying him. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/68 "2021-02-20T02:17:21Z")
> [@solost](#): > > What I never understood, and I don’t remember if it was touched on at all in the Netflix doc is, why do flat-Earthers think others believe Earth is an oblate sphere? Do they think all the ‘roundies’ are just wrong, or is there some sinister reason the flatness of the Earth is being covered up by the round Earthers? And what is that reason? WHAT IS IT??? Because that is precisely what the authorities teach. Contrary to popular myth, the Earth is, in point of fact, NOT round. > While the Earth appears to be round when viewed from the vantage point of space, it is actually closer to an ellipsoid > **[Is the Earth round?](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/earth-round.html)** > > While the Earth appears to be round when viewed from the vantage point of space, it is actually closer to an ellipsoid. However, even an ellipsoid does not adequately describe the Earth's unique and ever-changing shape > Isaac Newton first proposed that Earth was not perfectly round. Instead, he suggested it was an oblate spheroid—a sphere that is squashed at its poles and swollen at the equator. He was correct and, because of this bulge, the distance from Earth’s center to sea level is roughly 21 kilometers (13 miles) greater at the equator than at the poles. > **[Strange but True: Earth Is Not Round](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-round/)** > > It may seem round when viewed from space, but our planet is actually a bumpy spheroid ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/69 "2021-02-20T02:31:17Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > Once upon a time David Icke was a respected sports reporter for the BBC > > Wonder when he started to descend into a wacko His Wikipedia timeline starts showing supernatural (as opposed to political) weirdness around 1990. 1991 is when he went on Terry Wogan’s show and proclaimed himself the son of god. > [@mbh](#): > > I am skeptical that Icke believes the stuff in the books he sells. So we can never really know, of course. I recommend the chapter on Icke in Jon Ronson’s _Them_. After spending time with Icke on an ill-fated Canadian book tour, Ronson found that Icke really seemed to believe his own lizard shtick on a literal level, and as a bonus did not understand why people thought it was a thinly veiled antisemitic metaphor. I’ve only glanced at Icke’s stuff so I can’t begin to explain why he’d leave the lizards out of a lecture and focus on the Masons. Perhaps someone told him he was sounding a bit crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/70 "2021-02-20T03:50:35Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > I don’t know that much about the flat Earth conspiracy theory, so I might be wrong on this. But I would say the existence and dimensions of outer space. I don’t hear anyone questioning the fact that the little pricks of light we see in the sky are actually huge masses that are very far away. The fact that the sun is of gargantuan dimensions, that the moon is reflecting light from the sun even though we can’t see the sun right now, stuff like that. > > I think what makes the acceptance of this so impressive is that it is not easily verifiable. I mean, sure, you can do the calculations according to physics and what not. But, well, if you don’t believe China exists, you can travel to China and confirm that it exists. But it’s awfully hard to actually go into outer space and confirm that the sun, the moon, and the stars truly are what science says they are. Someone in my writing group is a Flat Earther, so I’ve done some research on this. They do indeed the stars are just pinpricks, and that the Sun and Moon are hundreds or thousands of miles above us, and move in weird patterns.This causes all kinds of problems, in that it can’t explain the terminator between night and day. They think the moon somehow creates dark - but the light and dark would have to extend different amounts depending on the angle to explain what we see. They also don’t believe in gravity - since a flat earth would not create the gravity we see. Some explain it by some kind of weird magnetism, some think the Earth is being accelerated at one g. You can disprove their view of the heavens by parallax, even from earth. The Flat Earth map looks like the map on the UN flag. You can disprove it by measuring the distance between major southern cities - like Sydney and Joburg - look up air travel times, and compute how fast planes have to fly to meet them. Answer - more than Mach One. > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > That the sun rises in the east every day and sets in the west? Even flat-earthers have to believe that. And it is a pretty big event. How would we be if it didn’t happen? They don’t, not the way we do. You should look it up on YouTube if you want to blow your mind - but they YouTube search algorithms put flat earth debunkers way over flat earthers. But the debunkers play the Flat Earther’s videos, so you’ll get an idea without tearing your hair out. The Flat Earther I know has no critical thinking or logical reasoning skills, and not just because of this. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/71 "2021-02-20T04:17:23Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You do realize that it’s actually cats that were behind it all, right? Well, you can’t spell cat without a CT. Wake up, sheeple! ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/72 "2021-02-20T21:05:37Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You do realize that it’s actually cats that were behind it all, right? So, how do flat-earthers explain the obvious problem that if the earth were flat cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/73 "2021-02-20T21:10:39Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > So, how do flat-earthers explain the obvious problem that if the earth were flat cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now? There are actually a series of flat earths. Every time the cats push us off one, we land on the next one. ---
**Author:** ![Erusiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6de8d8/32.png) [@Erusiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erusiel)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/74 "2021-02-21T12:19:13Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > I don’t know that much about the flat Earth conspiracy theory, so I might be wrong on this. But I would say the existence and dimensions of outer space. I don’t hear anyone questioning the fact that the little pricks of light we see in the sky are actually huge masses that are very far away. The fact that the sun is of gargantuan dimensions, that the moon is reflecting light from the sun even though we can’t see the sun right now, stuff like that. > > I think what makes the acceptance of this so impressive is that it is not easily verifiable. I mean, sure, you can do the calculations according to physics and what not. But, well, if you don’t believe China exists, you can travel to China and confirm that it exists. But it’s awfully hard to actually go into outer space and confirm that the sun, the moon, and the stars truly are what science says they are. There’s one guy who claims nothing we see in the night sky is farther away than the Earth-Sun distance. It all just _looks_ far-away due to giant [space mirrors](https://kendalastronomer.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/is-space-nothing-more-than-a-mirage/). The Sun is the only thing in the universe that gives off light, the planets are small and nearby, and all the stars and nebulae are just the distorted many-times reflected images of the Sun, or of sunlit planets. (The CT website mentioned in the above link no longer exists. The CTer has put up other hard-to-read material online, but doesn’t seem to have been active in recent years.) ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/75 "2021-02-21T14:11:12Z")
> **[Welteislehre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welteislehre)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Welteislehre (WEL; "World Ice Theory" or "World Ice Doctrine"), also known as Glazial-Kosmogonie (Glacial Cosmogony), is a discredited cosmological concept proposed by Hanns Hörbiger, an Austrian engineer and inventor. According to his ideas, ice was the basic substance of all cosmic processes, and ice moons, ice planets, and the "global ether" (also made of ice) had determined the entire development of the universe. Hörbiger did not arrive at his... ---
**Author:** ![Retzbu\_Tox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/retzbu_tox/32/11829_2.png) [@Retzbu\_Tox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Retzbu_Tox)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/76 "2021-02-21T15:11:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There are actually a series of flat earths. Every time the cats push us off one, we land on the next one. Wait a minute… You are saying that it’s not turtles all the way down, but flat earths all the way down? Could they be considered “parallel universes”? Have you and the cats solved brane cosmology? ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/77 "2021-02-21T15:55:58Z")
Pretty much this, I think. I have some former friends that are conspiracy theorists. I was always pushing back on their theories and I even attended a few meetings of their little conspiracy club. There’s this little internet glitch that happens sometimes on news pages. There are pages that are set up where the date on the page reflects the date the page was created, not the date it was last updated. If this page contains news, a date-limited search will show a current news event on a page dated before the event. This is a conspiracy theorists wet dream ——— Lookee here, here’s a story about the 9/11 attacks on a web page dated Dec 12 1999!! Looks like the evil shadow network of lizard people fucked up and left us a big smoking gun, one that the blind sheeple refuse to see. They’ll probably concoct some lame cover story about web page dates not updating properly! So I set out to debunk this and prove that these anomalies in date limited searches were just that, anomalies in date limited searches, not smoking gun evidence of a massive global conspiracy. I wasn’t even trying to debunk the underlying theories that day, just this one thing. First, I tried pointing out that the degree of specificity in the pre-dated story was problematic. How could the evil overlords know in advance what the weather would be like on 9/11? Apparently they control it. How could they know the names of the innocent bystanders that would be killed at the Boston Marathon bombing. Apparently they aren’t real people, those were fake personas that the government set up in advance, crisis actors, they never existed, no one was really killed or they volunteered. So that didn’t work. So I tried a different approach. I picked a couple of current news stories that I felt could not be twisted into conspiracy theories. Remember that guy in Cleveland that held three women captive for years until one of them escaped? That’s part of the global conspiracy. It has to be, because a date limited search pulls up a few stories about it dated before the escape. How did they know three years before exactly when and how that young woman would escape and which neighbors would be on the street at the time? The CT guy wasn’t sure, but the evil overlords are good. And they have supernatural powers because they are shape shifting aliens, which explains a lot…according to the CTer’s. Yes, Ann, I know it sounds weird, but you found that news story dated two years before the event, so there’s _ **no other possible explanation** _. That’s what I got. As the old joke goes, if God himself came down from heaven and told my friend that something, anything, wasn’t a conspiracy… he’d say “It goes even deeper than I thought.” It’s a mental disorder of sorts, some sort of over-connectivity or something. But there is absolutely NOTHING that the hard core CTer won’t see as a conspiracy. There may be events he doesn’t see as CT’s but only because he’s never looked at them. But as soon as you drag it into his vision by telling him it couldn’t possibly be a CT, he’ll be convinced that it is. Just because someone told him it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/78 "2021-02-22T01:54:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There are actually a series of flat earths. Every time the cats push us off one, we land on the next one. This also explains the [Mandela Effect](https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/mandela-effect#:~:text=The%20bottom%20line,ADVERTISEMENT). Every time you notice something that’s different from what you remember, it’s because a cat recently pushed you off to a new Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/79 "2021-02-22T01:58:04Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > But there is absolutely NOTHING that the hard core CTer won’t see as a conspiracy. This gets so bad in some cases that they actually claim the complete lack of evidence for a CT proves there is a CT, because the only way there can be _absolutely no evidence_ is if someone is covering it all up. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158/80 "2021-02-23T16:49:42Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > It’s a mental disorder of sorts, some sort of over-connectivity or something. But there is absolutely NOTHING that the hard core CTer won’t see as a conspiracy. There may be events he doesn’t see as CT’s but only because he’s never looked at them. But as soon as you drag it into his vision by telling him it couldn’t possibly be a CT, he’ll be convinced that it is. Just because someone told him it wasn’t. Being a sadistic bastard, I would propose that they _themselves_ are a crisis actor - that they are merely _pretending_ to believe the stupid conspiracy nonsense as part of a conspiracy to dupe me in some way, probably to rip me off. No matter how much they insisted that no, they really _do_ believe that jet contrails cause the moon’s phases, I would state that that was part of the act. No matter how much evidence they brought about their beliefs, be it a tinfoil hat or a bunker or a wall of string, I would say that they just set that up to fool me. I would be impossible to convince - they _are_ a rational and reasonable person, no matter what they may say or do. As an added bonus, going forward every time they tried to present some woo to me I could just go, “Ah, there you go again, trying to trick me. We both know you don’t believe that stuff! Now put that way and lets get back to our board game.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-biggest-event-that-is-accepted-by-all-conspiracy-theorists-at-face-value/933158.md?page=5)