Geoengineering! HAARP! Conspiracies! Deep state!

In reply to prodarwin :

Of course it is, and of course it isn't.

RacetruckRon said:

GameboyRMH said:

Saw one in a YouTube comment that said that the US government was covering up the existence of bigfoot, because if people knew that there were skunk apes running around they'd want to buy heavier weaponry to defend themselves from the sasquatch menace than either party would like civilians to have. Funny enough, it was on a video that animated a story of a bigfoot encounter that all seemed pretty level-headed and you could even say very believable, except for the part where police showed up and treated a bigfoot encounter like a totally ordinary wildlife issue. Like "Yeah they live in this area, just stay indoors if you see one and it'll be fine."

I mean that just makes plain sense to me.  I'd be packing some serious lead if I thought that giant skunk people lived in the woods behind my house. 

Why not dialog? Chewbacca looks like  he'd  make a pretty good wingman.

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

Appleseed said:

Remember, these people vote. With alarming regularity.

I had intended to post this exact statement, and neglected to do so. Thanks for saying so. 

These aren't the voters I'm worried about. They are a small percentage of the population. 

I'm more worried about the average idiot who believes everything they see on social media and the nightly news. 

Toyman! said:

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

Appleseed said:

Remember, these people vote. With alarming regularity.

I had intended to post this exact statement, and neglected to do so. Thanks for saying so. 

These aren't the voters I'm worried about. They are a small percentage of the population. 

I'm more worried about the average idiot who believes everything they see on social media and the nightly news. 

Quoted for truth.  Or is the "T" word not allowed anymore?

Duke said:

In reply to dculberson :

It is an N word, but it's the one with a z in the middle.

I want to say "ohhhh, that makes more sense." But I'm not sure it actually does. Ha!

In reply to Toyman! :

These aren't the voters I'm worried about. They are a small percentage of the population. 
 

That got me thinking. They are a very small percentage of the population. So small, I can't say that I've met anyone with the popularly shared out-there theories. It seems that the coverage of those theories far outsizes the actual belief. Part of this can be attributed to them being funny and entertaining, and the vast majority would never consider them seriously, so no real danger in sharing. But- (warning- conspiracy theory alert) they sure give good cover to discredit much more plausible theories by just lumping them in with the whack-a-do ones. Bonus points if they can show that the same people who support the crazy ones also support the more accurate ones, and tag them to those people. History has shown that there has been no shortage of conspiracies. 

dculberson said:

Duke said:

In reply to dculberson :

It is an N word, but it's the one with a z in the middle.

I want to say "ohhhh, that makes more sense." But I'm not sure it actually does. Ha!

Along with Argentina, it's claimed the Nazis were building a secret base in Antarctica before WWII started.

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

It's also important to realize, in some cases, what was considered a crazy conspiracy at one point, turns out to be reality (or close to) eventually.  This of course is related to the fact, as noted, that most conspiracy theories are based on at least some amount of know fact (at the time).

You could say, conspiracy type thinking is very much a version of "outside the box" type thinking, that many see as very valuable.

Letting it control your life... and scrawling it all over your car...  well...

z31maniac said:

Along with Argentina, it's claimed the Nazis were building a secret base in Antarctica before WWII started.

That's another one that had a kernel of truth to it. They wanted to build a base and even sent a survey expedition, but that's as far as it went:

https://www.coolantarctica.com/Community/antarctic-mysteries-hitlers-secret-base.php

An interesting related story, they set up an unmanned weather station in a remote part of Newfoundland that wasn't discovered until the late '70s/early '80s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Station_Kurt

Mr_Asa said:

If he didn't have a license plate I'd call SovCit. 

 

Those guys are weird

Did you know that you can just buy real license plates?  Usually for only a couple bucks on eBay.

This thread seems like a good place to put this:

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to Toyman! :

These aren't the voters I'm worried about. They are a small percentage of the population. 
 

That got me thinking. They are a very small percentage of the population. So small, I can't say that I've met anyone with the popularly shared out-there theories. [...]

Don't pat yourselves on the back too hard, the percentage is not that small, 15% seems to be the most conservative estimate of the percentage of Americans who believe in a significant number of totally coocoo-bananas conspiracies.

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

"Sun Simulator" isn't quite right because all of reality is a simulation inclusive of the sun.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

The fact of anything's existence depends on how you define exist.

The Simulation Hypothesis is monism for atheists. ​​

MadScientistMatt said:

The Simulation Hypothesis is monism for atheists. ​​

Similarly, Roko's Basilisk is Pascal's Wager for atheists who are still spiritual enough to think that a person can be resurrected as a virtual ghost.