# Your private, off the wall theories **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 5, 2012, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963 "2012-05-05T06:39:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/1 "2012-05-05T06:39:01Z")
. . . which you think plausible but probably unprovable? And I don’t mean “there’s a sock eating monster hiding behind my dryer, tee hee!” but things where you think there really could be something to it – but doubt much evidence will ever come to light, alas. Two of mine: First, many societies exhibit a _very_ long term cycle, on the order of ~75-85 years or so, where one generation lives through an all-encompassing existential crisis or transformation whose memory serves as a warning for the next two generations or so, until that era passes out of living memory for the most part and a similarly urgent crisis comes along. For the US it was the American Revolution, the Civil War, then World War II, and we’re due for another one very soon. Perhaps for some societies it’s a longer or more variable cycle, e.g. with England/the UK and the Civil War, the Seven Years War, the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. Second, and more outlandish, I think there may be phenomena in the world that humans not only cannot explain, but cannot even “see” properly because it involves intrusions some other sphere of existence we’re not equipped to perceive. People in ancient China might have seen dragons flying through the sky, while ancient Israelites saw a miraculous wheel, medieval peasants saw demons and people in our society see spacecraft, and they’ve all been equally right and all been equally wrong. If you yourself were standing and looking at one of these things in our time, your mind really would fill it in with rocket fins and portholes and whatnot because you’re simply not equipped to perceive what’s _really_ there. Go ahead and rip the above the shreds, I’ll just shrug. As I say, I don’t expect any of this ever to be supported by any evidence, but I can’t help suspecting it’s true nonetheless. The point, though, is: what are your own private unfounded theories? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/2 "2012-05-05T08:13:32Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > For the US it was the American Revolution, the Civil War, then World War II, and we’re due for another one very soon. Nah, the existential crisis to follow WWII arrived on 9/11/2001. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/3 "2012-05-05T09:24:16Z")
I suspect insomnia could be some sort of virus. Lots of people I know seem to get bouts of it at the same time. I realise it almost certainly isn’t of course, but it amuses me to think that it could be. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/4 "2012-05-05T09:57:14Z")
**Vitamin C** tablets are impregnated with a rhinovirus which: a) Brings on an attack of some sort of lurgy, and b) Sends you to the store to buy more Vit C tablets to deal with the virus. If that fails then, c) You go to the pharmacy to buy some dinkum Cold and Flu tabs. If that fails then, d) You go to your GP for some anti-viral shit. It’s all a plot by the pharmaceutical industry to keep us coughing and snivelling. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/5 "2012-05-05T11:20:15Z")
Shortly after it was founded, the CIA was penetrated and infiltrated by the KGB. Since that time, the CIA has involved the USA in all kinds of ruinous wars-with the intent of weakening the USA. This theory explains why the CIA is involved in propping up regimes around the world, and (ultimately) involving the USA in foreign conflicts. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/6 "2012-05-05T12:00:16Z")
I don’t think Anita Loos wrote _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes_ or its equally wonderful sequel, _Gentlemen Marry Brunettes_. During her whole very long career, these are the only two good books she ever wrote, which leads me to believe someone else–perhaps her husband, also a writer–either wrote them or hugely contributed to them. Or Anita Loos got hit on the head by an anvil after writing that second book and suddenly lost all her talent. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/7 "2012-05-05T12:10:55Z")
Miss Hannigan is Annie’s real mom. So far I haven’t been able to convince anyone of this. It’s mainly due to the (I assume coincidental) hair color of the two actors and the fact that Miss Hannigan didn’t want Annie to go to Mr Warbucks’ house for the week or sign the papers to let her get adopted even though you’d think she’d be thrilled to get the little effin’ troublemaker out of her orphanage. Of course the theory falls apart when Miss Hannigan tells Rooster about Annie’s real mom. But her and Rooster didn’t seem that close and maybe she just didn’t want Rooster to know that the kid was hers. Also, keeping the kid as an orphan meant she got money from the state to raise her. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/8 "2012-05-05T13:24:12Z")
Time is the agency that orders causes before effects, and nothing whatsoever but that. All its appearances to be some sort of stuff flowing by are entirely evolved human mental processes for manipulating it in our internal “what if” games. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/9 "2012-05-05T13:32:30Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > First, many societies exhibit a _very_ long term cycle, on the order of ~75-85 years or so, where one generation lives through an all-encompassing existential crisis or transformation whose memory serves as a warning for the next two generations or so, until that era passes out of living memory for the most part and a similarly urgent crisis comes along. For the US it was the American Revolution, the Civil War, then World War II, and we’re due for another one very soon. Perhaps for some societies it’s a longer or more variable cycle, e.g. with England/the UK and the Civil War, the Seven Years War, the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. Hardly a new concept. Here are some Wikipedia links: > **[Social cycle theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cycle_theory)** > > 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias > Social cycle theories are among the earliest social theories in sociology. Unlike the theory of social evolutionism, which views the evolution of society and human history as progressing in some new, unique direction(s), sociological cycle theory argues that events and stages of society and history generally repeat themselves in cyc... > **[Cyclical theory (United States history)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclical_theory)** > > The cyclical theory refers to a model used by historians Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. to explain the fluctuations in politics throughout American history. In this theory, the United States' national mood alternates between liberalism and conservatism. Each phase has characteristic features, and each phase is self-limiting, generating the other phase. This alternation has repeated itself several times over the history of the United States. A similar theory for Amer The S... > **[Edward R. Dewey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_cycles)** > > Edward Russel Dewey (1895–1978) was an economist who studied cycles in economics and other fields. > Dewey first became interested in cycles while Chief Economic Analyst of the Department of Commerce in 1930 or 1931 because President Hoover wanted to know the cause of the Great Depression. Dewey reported that each economist to whom he spoke gave him a different answer and he lost faith in the current economic methods. He received and took advice to study how business behaviour occurred rather th... It’s a favorite model of Marxists, proto-Nazis and Henry Kissinger. Either from the point of view that “Let’s destroy stuff to start another cycle.” or “_Those people_ are making our wonderful society decline.” Or both. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/10 "2012-05-05T13:42:51Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Either from the point of view that “Let’s destroy stuff to start another cycle.”… Isn’t that the reasoning behind half the evil schemes of supervillains? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/11 "2012-05-05T13:56:44Z")
Back pain is viral. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/12 "2012-05-05T14:00:43Z")
I think NASA should start developing prosthetic skeletons - complete replacements for the human skeleton. Once that’s done, we can come up with replacements for bodily organs until we’re left with a brain, a spinal cord, computers, and a completely artificial body. At that point, technologies like flying cars and virtual reality will go from impossible to easy. It also removes a lot of the difficulty inherent with space travel. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/13 "2012-05-05T14:05:08Z")
Hostility to hard-core atheism is personal, not philosophical. By which I mean that religion, even to many atheists and most agnostics, is perceived as vaguely benign because of their personal acquaintance with believers whom they believe to be good, well-meaning, decent people, such as their believing mamas and papas and good ol’ granmaw. So when a hard-core atheist expresses the view that it’s all a self-serving crock o’ shit and offensive and destructive and evil, the anger he receives even from agnostics and fellow atheists derives, not from any philosophical differences (of which there are almost none), but from what you’re sayin’ about my Ma. “She ain’t evil, she ain’t destructive, she’s a sweet ol’ gray-haired lady who happens to have a few fundamental ideas she hasn’t quite thought through yet, so you take back what you just implied about my Ma, or you and me’s gonna have to step into the parkin’ lot…” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/14 "2012-05-05T14:45:27Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Hostility to hard-core atheism is personal, not philosophical. By which I mean that religion, even to many atheists and most agnostics, is perceived as vaguely benign because of their personal acquaintance with believers whom they believe to be good, well-meaning, decent people, such as their believing mamas and papas and good ol’ granmaw. So when a hard-core atheist expresses the view that it’s all a self-serving crock o’ shit and offensive and destructive and evil, the anger he receives even from agnostics and fellow atheists derives, not from any philosophical differences (of which there are almost none), but from what you’re sayin’ about my Ma. “She ain’t evil, she ain’t destructive, she’s a sweet ol’ gray-haired lady who happens to have a few fundamental ideas she hasn’t quite thought through yet, so you take back what you just implied about my Ma, or you and me’s gonna have to step into the parkin’ lot…” Or alternatively, “hard-core” atheists are so smug about their cleverness at having seen through religion that they cannot even imagine that anyone else, even another atheist, might have good, rational reasons for holding a different point of view (and thus bolster their smug closed-mindedness with speculative _ad hominenms_). :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![OldnCrinkly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@OldnCrinkly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldnCrinkly)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/15 "2012-05-05T16:46:11Z")
I think that non-stick coating on pots and pans is toxic. You see people all the time cooking in stuff where that crap is flaking off and getting into the food. All these increases in autism, cancers, air pollution, or who knows what, how many might be related to that crap? The warnings on the packaging should be enough to scare anybody off. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/16 "2012-05-05T17:24:55Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Or alternatively, “hard-core” atheists are so smug about their cleverness at having seen through religion that they cannot even imagine that anyone else, even another atheist, might have good, rational reasons for holding a different point of view (and thus bolster their smug closed-mindedness with speculative _ad hominenms_). :rolleyes: This isn’t the place to argue about other people’s private, off the wall theories, is it? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/17 "2012-05-05T17:29:05Z")
The human body is so poorly designed that it couldn’t possibly have evolved from chance and that there must be some kind of mentally-challenged creator behind it. I call it “Incompetent Design”. While Neil Armstrong will be known forever as the first person to ever step foot on the Moon, his fame will be far overshadowed by Eugene Cernan, who will be known forever as being the last person to ever step foot on the Moon. Despite what he did, Anders Behring Breivik has far better living conditions right now than 99% of the human race. Jews cannot possibly be the secret rulers of the world since there’s no way they’d be able to fuck it up this badly if they were. Or alternately, there is a massive Zionist conspiracy to make us think that there is a massive Zionist conspiracy. And while I’m on the subject, that it’s not true that six million Jews died in the Holocaust. The actual number is 5,999,999. As for one that is considered really crazy fringe lunacy where I’m from, Obama is a Christian born in the United States. True love doesn’t exist, though what both sexes describe of such is actually emotional neediness for women and a desire to get laid for men. Alien life exists, but would sooner send their ships on a trajectory into the nearest black hole than contact us Earthlings. The Tea Party thinks the government has screwed over America. The Occupy Wall Street movement thinks the corporations have screwed over America. They’re both right. For that matter, the Tea Party would have been the best movement America would ever have known had it formed eight years earlier. (Think about who was President before Obama.) That Gandhi’s success in India during the 1930s and 1940s was due largely to India being ruled by Britain instead of say, Germany. Facebook wasn’t actually invented by Mark Zuckerberg, but by the CIA as an intelligence gathering tool. It’s been by far their most successful project. And the most unlikely theory of all, it’s possible I don’t have the most positive outlook on life. ---
**Author:** ![Corcaigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Corcaigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corcaigh)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/18 "2012-05-05T17:35:13Z")
Star Wars was based on actual events. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/19 "2012-05-05T17:48:07Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > . . . which you think plausible but probably unprovable? . . . things where you think there really could be something to it – but doubt much evidence will ever come to light, alas. . . . what are your own private unfounded theories? I’m not sure from the description whether I’d have to believe the theory myself, or not. I have a theory about the beanie baby boom and bust that probably has nothing whatever to do with reality, let alone evidence. As background: if you take a tour of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, you will see a line of old-style refrigerators and hear a little speech about how the first refrigerators had a hard time competing with ice-boxes until someone did a little study and discovered that housewives had gotten used to arranging decorative objects on top of their ice-boxes and didn’t like having the condenser located on the top, taking away that space. (If you’d been raised in my family, you’d have already heard the story as part of my Dad’s ongoing “People are Irrational Sheep” speech.) ((Both stories conclude that when the condenser was moved to the back, where it was less efficient, sales started to rise.)) Applying the general idea of the “don’t mess with the decoration space” theory to a few observations during temp gigs in a number of ofices, I came up with my Beanie Baby Theory. I put numbers to the steps, but have carefully not done any research regarding dates. No need to spoil a lovely theory with nasty little facts. 1. Office workers get used to flat-topped CRT-screened computer monitors, and decorate them with doilies, vases, etc. 2. Computer manufacturers, following the ergonomics of office workers, create slant-topped CRT-screened monitors to prevent neck and back pain. Office workers can still position doilies, but vases and other hard objects will slide off. Enter beanie babies as decorations, perched on computer screens. The beanie baby boom is on. 3. Technical innovation creates flat-screened monitors. Not even doilies can be popped onto the top of those babies. (I had a small line of little orange traffic cones, once, but I’m strange.) However, the new screens free up space around the screen, so the vases and other objects are back, sitting on the desk near the screen. The beanie baby bubble bursts. No, I haven’t checked to see whether the changes in computer monitors actually line up with the dates of the beanie baby bubble. That’s because I really don’t want to know. I think of it as my own little pseudo-social theory. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963/20 "2012-05-05T17:54:34Z")
I still hold that the Gulf is Mexico is an impact crater, despite no scientific evidence to back it up. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-private-off-the-wall-theories/620963.md?page=2)