Ah. So a conspiracy theory doesn’t count once it is exposed (it is a war crime, or secret operation, etc)? That is like the argument that AI cannot replace human intellect because once AI can perform a task, that task is no longer a hurdle of human intellect (driving a car, doing surgery, trading stocks, etc). The fact that the president never supported Operation northwoods doesn’t change the fact that the joint chiefs supported it.
The real question is, what true conspiracies have remained hidden for long periods of time, with the truth postulated by conspiracy theorists but ridiculed/put down by most observers, and then been shown to be true?
MKUltra, My Lai, covering up health risks of various consumer products, secret CIA prisons, Tuskegee, operation Gladio
I think that the term “conspiracy” contains some hint of illegality to the affair. For example, I do a lot of things at my work that I’m not telling you about - nondisclosure agreement. But I don’t feel that I’m “conspiring” in the process of doing my job of keeping secrets. The reason I don’t is because it’s what I’m expected to do, and everyone knows I’m doing it.
So, to me, that kind of means that as long as a person is acting within the expectations of their position, as a government agent or a non-murderous citizen or whatever, they are not part of a conspiracy as a result.
I recognize that this is very semantic, though.
There was a conspiracy to cover up what happened at My Lai. cite.
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Getting off track a bit, slight hijack, perhaps worthy of it’s own thread…
How would people who don’t believe in conspiracies feel if one was proven to be true?
Not so much on the other side cause they have, for the most part, been proven not to be a conspiracy.
What are your cites for dedicated conspiracy theorists exposing the Truth on these subjects?
As noted, there have been such things as genuine conspiracies. The existence of one does not mean we should take seriously mountains of conspiracy blabber based on molehills of evidence.
The JFK assassination alone provides oodles of examples of refuted claims and conspiracies. Should we reject all proposed conspiracies on the basis of this sorry history? Nah - let’s take each case as it comes, insisting on good evidence before diving into belief.
It’s like the cliches constantly repeated by alternative medicine enthusiasts: “They laughed at Semmelweis! They ridiculed Galileo! You must respect my claim to have a universal cure for cancer that is completely safe, cheap and can be mixed up at home!”
They also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
The Lavon Affair, where Mossad agents undertook terrorist attacks on US and UK assets and then attempted to blame it on Muslims.
This is the biggest confirmed conspiracy I can think of, and one that is frequently used to justify clams that “The Jews” were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Has anyone ever found evidence that the government–CIA, whatever–is involved in the drug trade that fuels the “war on drugs”? I’ve heard that stated as fact for years, but I don’t see it mentioned here.
Instead of arguing about what exactly constitutes a conspiracy (a secret military plan? a spy agency operation? drug companies minimizing data showing side effects to a product?) and who “exposed” such matters - let’s ask a question that’s a sort of mirror to the OP:
What is the biggest unexposed conspiracy?
There are plenty of biggies. Wesley Clark and others - which of these do you believe will be “exposed” as true, to the gratification of conspiracy theorists and the consternation of skeptics?
- the moon landing was faked
- 9/11 was a U.S. government/Jewish conspiracy falsely blamed on al-Queda
- Obama is not a U.S. citizen (the “birther” conspiracy)
- AIDS/H1N1 flu was created by the Government/C.I.A. for population control/genocide
- The Government knows that water fluoridation is deadly toxic and ineffective against preventing cavities and has suppressed this information
- Vaccines don’t prevent disease and cause autism and other terrible health problems, which info is being concealed by those in the know
- Airplane contrails are actually chemtrails, released by those in power for nefarious purposes
- Aliens have landed on earth, and there is a conspiracy to conceal that fact
- there’s a cure for cancer and the “cancer industry” is suppressing the news
- Secret societies control the world
There are lots more - but of just these popular and oft-repeated conspiracy theories with large number of adherents - which do you believe, which are crap, or do all have to be respected because, well,
MK ULTRA!!!
Iran-Contra was the real deal but it was only the tip of the iceberg for a series of conspiracies coming out of the CIA for decades before that. The list is too long to go into without writing a book on it but the CIA was heavily involved in revolutions and insurgencies in Central and South America. They even had heavy corporate involvement as a partner, the United Fruit Company (now Chiquata Banana). I have been to academic lectures on this in Latin American studies by well regarded academics and that is the one large conspiracy that I can think of that is the most confirmed. It is easy enough to google if you are interested in that conspiracy in particular.
I find it hard to believe that any of them will be exposed. I find it hard to believe that most of them ar even physically possibly.
So can I rephrase the question: which of these do I believe *could *be “exposed” as true, to the gratification of conspiracy theorists and the consternation of skeptics? IOW if they were revealed in tomorrow’s headlines nobody would declare that it must be wrong because it’s impossible due to the evidence against it.
So on a scale of lunacy, with 10 being Tom Cruise Crazy and 5 being Martin Sheen madness and 1 being Lucille Ball loopy.
**
- the moon landing was faked**
- Very close to physically impossible insofar as the conspiracy would need to be so vast and requires the collusion of the USSR at he peak of the cold war.
2) 9/11 was a U.S. government/Jewish conspiracy falsely blamed on al-Queda
- This at least has the benefit of being plausible and logical, despite a total absence of evidence. Gets my vote as the most realistic CT (which is damning with faint praise).
3) Obama is not a U.S. citizen (the “birther” conspiracy).
- Not physically impossible, and at least the conspiracy doesn’t need to involve the Soviets, but it is so convoluted as to be completely illogical.
4) AIDS/H1N1 flu was created by the Government/C.I.A. for population control/genocide.
- Not physically impossible, but completely illogical and contradictory to all the evidence we do have.
5) The Government knows that water fluoridation is deadly toxic and ineffective against preventing cavities and has suppressed this information.
- Very close to physically impossible insofar as the conspiracy would need to be so vast and requires the collusion of the USSR at he peak of the cold war.
6) Vaccines don’t prevent disease and cause autism and other terrible health problems, which info is being concealed by those in the know.
- Very close to physically impossible. Not only would the conspiracy need to be so vast and require the collusion of the USSR at the peak of the cold war, but also countered by the direct observational evidence of anyone over the age of 60.
7) Airplane contrails are actually chemtrails, released by those in power for nefarious purposes.
- Not familiar with this one, so it’s hard to judge, but it sounds like it’s physically impossible.
8) Aliens have landed on earth, and there is a conspiracy to conceal that fact
- Would rate lower, since it’s at least plausible. But c’mon, aliens.
9) there’s a cure for cancer and the “cancer industry” is suppressing the news
- Simply because it makes no fricken’ sense, never mind the breadth of the conspiracy.
10) Secret societies control the world.
5- 10, depending on how we define “control the world”.
You simply aren’t reading people correctly here. There aren’t very many conspiracy theorists on this board so abandon your intellectual high-horse. We tend to crack down hard on the real conspiracy theorists. However, there are such things as true conspiracies although they may be more rare and mundane than the crazies want us to think but you can’t just rule out that all of them are false just because they seem odd at first glance. The OP has a legitimate question.
Yay I’m being singled out.
Conspiracies of 9/11 do not generally portray it as a jewish conspiracy. That is a strawman argument on your part. However, I do feel there are questions that I would like to see answers to about 9/11.
http://www.911independentcommission.org/questions.html
I’d also like to know why none of the warnings we got were followed up on in any meaningful way.
If anything, these loose ends are making even more radical conspiracy theories sound more plausible.
Four is false because HIV is evolved from SIV, which wasn’t isolated and discovered until years after HIV appeared in humans.
As far as point 8, I do think there are issues that need to be looked into. More investigations into issues like this.
As far as issue 9, cancer is far too complex for there to be a cureall.
Aside from that, I haven’t seen evidence for the other issues being true. If other people have some, I’m willing to see it.
The truth has already been exposed on these subjects and we have investigations that have already been conducted. I’m not sure what you are asking.
If you are going to discount all conspiracy theories, then you need to laugh in the face of every investigative journalist on earth. Because that is largely what they do. When powerful, wealthy and influential people are hiding secrets from the public or engaging in shady dealings then IJ’s go out and uncover these events.
As an example, the CIA is running a secret prison system. Dana Priest won a pulitzer prize for exposing this system of prisons.
What are you asking? I am confused. I get the impression you cannot tell the difference between investigative journalists and people with personal websites who spout unfounded theories.
I think Stanley Moon said it best in Bedazzled:
Stanley Moon: You’re a nutcase! You’re a bleedin’ nutcase!
George Spiggott: They said the same of Jesus Christ, Freud, and Galileo.
Stanley Moon: They said it of a lot of nutcases too.
I saw a documentary on the terrorism at the Munich Olympics. There was a bit at the end that might be relevant to this thread. There was a botched rescue attempt in which all the hostages were killed, and three of the terrorists were captured. Less than two months later, hijackers took over a Lufthansa aircraft and demanded the release of the terrorists. The documentary claims that the West German government was complicit in the hijacking to have an excuse to let the terrorists go; that they did not want them to stand trial and reveal how badly the rescue attempt was mismanaged.
I don’t know how widespread that theory is. I’ve never found any strong confirmation of it.
The Third Reich tried to hide it also during the war. (For instance, allowed the Red Cross visit concentration camps specially prepared for this inspection.) The Nazis weren’t mindless maniacs, they knew what they were doing; they not only tried to hide the holocaust for its present age, but also planned to erase it from their own history. They knew that the holocaust was a terrible crime; they knew what they were doing and that it should never be known.
from the OP:
Apart from the straw man nature of this question (I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone here claim that no conspiracies have ever existed), the thread strikes me as designed to gin up a handy cut-and-paste type list that can be brought up whenever some cockamamie conspiracy theory is being argued for the nth time (a version of “They persecuted/sneered at Galileo!”). We had virtually the same thread within the last three months on IMHO or GQ by someone who habitually makes these sorts of claims (just because it isn’t coming up on the search engine doesn’t mean it’s not TRUE and THEY are keeping it from me).
The fact is that the vast majority of events that are blamed on conspiracies are due to normal human or natural phenomena, screwups by fallible humans, or ordinary skulduggery that happens all the time (in addition to military secret operations, if we include all spy agency plans and actions, the “conspiracies” quickly grow to such numbers as to be unwieldy and meaningless).
Again, I’d like to see evidence that the people who obsess about the types of “conspiracies” on my list and clutter up the Internet with their droolings are of any use at all in uncovering real facts of significance.
You can’t be serious. What about all those Jewish workers who stayed at home? Hmm? Hmmmmm???
Investigative journalists armed with facts, I hear out with respect. Would-be Nostradamuses on message boards, not so much.
I view far-out conspiracy claims with disdain for three primary reasons - they represent sloppy and lazy thinking, they promote baseless distrust of qualified and dedicated people and valuable societal contributions (notably in the realm of medicine) and often, especially in the case of Multiple Conspiracy Syndrome, are used as a cover for bigotry and xenophobia.
The Bush plan to attack Iran in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and again in 2009 (after he cancelled the election).
Regards,
Shodan
I can’t see how the Holocaust could be considered anything other than the perfect example.
-“Dude, they’re rounding up all the Jews, shipping them off to these ‘concentrations camps’, and conducting evil medical experiments on them. Every night, they round up hundreds of them, tell them they’re getting a shower, then gas them all to death.”
-“Get the fuck out of here.”
-“No, no, it’s true. See, Hitler hates all the Jews, man. And he can’t let the rest of the world find out, or else it would destroy many of the alliances he’s been able to put together up till now.”
-“You’re funny.”