The international Jewish conspiracy theory, which includes Jewish Bolshevism, Cultural Marxism, Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory, White genocide conspiracy theory, and Holocaust denial, has been a persistent issue for over a millennium. This theory, which has led to the spilling of Jewish blood since the Middle Ages and heavily influenced Nazi ideology, has been a self-sustaining cycle.
The conspiracy theory that Jews are uniquely evil and influential has been present since the Middle Ages and heavily influenced the Nazi ideology that left 11 dead. It aims to give Black people a new identity, culture, and history, stripping Jewish people of their heritage dating back thousands of years to biblical times.
The international Jewish conspiracy or world Jewish conspiracy has been described as one of the most widespread and long-running conspiracy theories. Antisemitic beliefs have spread antisemitic beliefs that blame Jews for the world’s worst tragedies. A deep dive into the intricate psychology behind mass antisemitism is needed to understand how people harbor such intense Jew-hatred, leading to the murder of Jews.
Belief in conspiracy theories about Jews is a prototypical example of how a naïve theory can serve as a universal explanation for “all the bad things”. Factors such as education, conspiratorial thinking, and personal beliefs can contribute to the spread of antisemitic beliefs.
In conclusion, the conspiracy theories surrounding Jews have been persistent and long-standing, with the belief in them serving as a universal explanation for the world’s worst tragedies.
📹 Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
A while ago, I made a video about illiteracy, and one of the comments on the video was that the opening statistics were incredibly …
📹 The Conspiracy Theory of World War II
Prof. Jeffrey Herf explores the place antisemitism held in Nazi propaganda, addressing the question of why this phenomenon …
This article has been demonetized (limited or no ads). Apparently YouTube cannot tell the difference between conspiracy theory content and this article, which discusses the science behind conspiratorial belief. Rather than chopping out large portions of the article, I have decided to upload the entirety, as I think this topic is important. If you’d like to support the website, please consider checking out my Patreon: patreon.com/GeorgRockallSchmidt Cheers, Georg
Dan Olson in his article, In Search of a Flat Earth (a article I think is required perusal for anyone on the internet in this day and age), puts is very succinctly and I always keep coming back to it: “They’re not trying to explain the world, they are trying to unexplain it because the answers that they’ve gotten are inconvenient to their politics” Conspiracy theories don’t exist in a vacuum, they are so often tied to extremist and often outright bigoted beliefs and all of the conspiracy stuff is just them trying to make all the things they want to do, dominionism, genocide, authoritarianism, justified and thereby okay. It’s how far the villains of the world have to go to make themselves into the good guys.
Something to consider (Captain Disillusion said this), is that some people find comfort in believing conspiracy theories. It can be more comforting to believe that there is someone out there, controlling everything. If 9/11 was an inside job, that’s comforting because we know it was a controlled event. It can be much more uncomfortable for people to come to terms with the fact that no one is in control.
Well, the only way anything ever gets done is due to conspiracies; from parents scheming around a school board meeting, or businessmen around lunch plotting financial hoaxes, to political hi-jinx like a two-party system sharing same corporate sponsors. If nobody is whispering in your ear, then you need to get busy!
Because people hear a story from say, an investigative journalist or journalists like a President ordering break ins, or the story of how Queen Elizabeth got UK Parliament to grant an exception where she could keep much of her wealth tax free and secret(UK monarchs and family can pay no tax if they don’t want to) So, people quite rightly think – ‘If that’s only the stuff I’m hearing about, there’s much much more out there’
It’s easy to see why people believe in conspiracy theories, I mean we buy products that track our every move, listen to our conversations and can predict our actions based on all our previous actions. Most of the Governments are corrupt, and the media outlets are owned by rich billionaires. All the while the world is on fire and we are being gas lighted into doing nothing about it.
Regarding the idea that there is clear enough distinction between real and imaginary patterns to use as an independent variable in research. That is just demonstrably silly. Every arrangement of things has a pattern and none of them are more real or significant on their own. Pattern become significant only via interpretation. There are a great many patterns of color and shape in every visual image of the jungle. The ones that say “Tiger!” are no more real than those that don’t but they are a lot more significant to prey. So what the research shows, if anything, is that people who interpret in uncommon ways are more likely to also find significance in patterns that look like conspiracies. What marks conspiracy beliefs us irrational is not that they are acquired in a special way – they are not, they are acquired using the same epistemic practices we all use all the time – but how they are justified or not. And being about a conspiracy is not enough to warrant that a belief is epistemically unjustified. To see this, just remember Iran-Contra, the gunpowder plot, planned obsolescence and the documented fact that actors in the petrochemical industry have known about the climate catastrophy since at least the 70ties and worked to keep this out of public discourse.
Conspiracies exist. Conspiracy theories tend to generate entropy.. Conspirators seek to maintain secrecy. Conspiracy theorists seek recruits to spread the theories(entropy) Mind control seeks to limit freely generated thought. Thought travels at the speed of light if not faster. (Just a thought🤔). It resonates to frequencies that manifests into possibilities. That said, I was never here and this comment was never posted. The algorithm won’t allow it.😎
I’m 3 minutes in but I feel like it’s not a good start to draw distinctions between “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory” and then boldly define conspiracy theory in such as negative way. On its face, and by using the fucking English language, I am perfectly capable of deducing the meaning of the term “conspiracy theory”. And somehow, he ends up doing it in a disingenuous way, by weaving his arguments into his own definition, while presenting it as objective or scientific.
Another factor that some might relate to (especially younger people imo), is the very human quest for penetrating the Grand Mystery and hidden truth. I certainly felt that that was what I was doing when “researching” (read: believing at a glance) conspiracy theories at 16-19. I think this is what draws myself and others toward genres like cosmic horror and weird fiction.
My problem with conspiracy theories is that its easy to shit on flat earthers and lizard people believers, but it then gets conflated with stuff that actually happened, that isn’t wildy known aswell as stuff that’s just straight up false. The prevailing idealogical narrative is the pivot to which conspiracy theories are smeared or promoted whether they have merit or not. Trump is a Russian agent was promoted by the media except on FOX news The Hunter Biden laptop was smeared as a russian conspiracy except on FOX news later Huffpo Lab leak conspiracy theory was smeared as racist, Chinese people eating bat soup and pangolin roast caused the outbreak, wasn’t Also this idea that religious people are more susceptible to conspiracy theories reeks of the faulty pattern recognition of liberals and athiests, I say this as one but also as someone who to listen to Sam Harris slowly go batshit. Couldn’t one say that the theory of why conspiracy theories happen is itself a conspiracy theory and it shares the same faulty pattern recognition, biases and political and social motivations. Conspiracy theories can mean bullshit like flat earth or sandy hook but it can also mean Epstein island and MK Ultra which happpened.
My only quibble is that it’s entirely plausible and believable that finding cures for different cancers is, at the very least conducted in a purposely stunted manner. Consider how much money the for-profit health industry makes off of long term “care” for cancer patients. It’s a gold mine. I don’t think it’s entirely bonkers to think there might be something to it.
Conspiracy theories almost always rely on the motte-and-bailey fallacy, where a collection of plausible or even empricially accurate claims are held up to defend and justify a much larger collection of increasing implausible or irrational ones. The consequence of this is that practical issues are transformed into more abstract ideological ones, and it becomes much harder to work towards reforms that could actually address the real issues that might be a part of the overarching theory.
I really like that researcher invented Red bull conspiracy because it really does highlight the issue of conspiracy theorists not seeing patterns where they actually exist. Red Bull really does have an addictive chemical in it, its just that its the totally legally and common chemical caffeine. Why would they need to add an illegal one?
Our governments would never lie to us. And they definitely would never control and manipulate news media, Hollywood films, and social media in order to steer us towards specific emotions or outcomes. That would be practically impossible, due to how exceptionally open minded, and independently intelligent the majority of us are. Anyway great article, brb going to wal mart to consume and purchase as much as possible.
Here little is story. The thing that turned me into being susceptible to conspiracy theories was something that happened in my home town of Sheffield, you can look it up it is called the “Hillsborough disaster” – for years I had to put up with being branded a conspiracy theorist because my view of what happened differed wildly from the official narrative. If you read up about it though you will find there was a concerted attempt to cover up what happened that day. So having seen one conspiracy, there is a temptation to wonder if others are also taking place. It is a slippery slope. “If there’s a steady pay cheque in it, I’ll believe anything you say!” I’m probably just saying that because I am a prole and I have all those terrible traits and spent years studying the occult. All the things, but mostly that the fact we are coming out of an ice age explains the global warming as opposed to thinking it is due to the lizard people turning up the Earth’s thermostat.
A conspiracy theory is just a claim of potential corruption our criminal behavior going on. Depending where you look they can either be extremly nonsensical to extremely sensical.. which made it hard to talk about it cause they tend to have a very bad reputation becouse of the first one.. its also important to mention that at times conspiracy theories are part themselves of conspires trying to push agendas . So its also important to never let them get to your head even when they dont sound crazy
If you look at court cases, the police and prosecution can theorise that the person has committed a crime, sometimes with no evidence or fabricated evidence leading to miscarriages of justice. But for the rich and powerful they are squeaky clean but they control the narrative. The mainstream media lie and just ignore certain things such as the US 2014 coup taking over Ukraine.
The book “Roswell inconvenient facts” by Karl Pflock, utterly debunks the “case”, with receipts. It’s very useful in that it demonstrates the format or template, which all popular conspiracy theories follow. That of conflation, innuendo, lie by omission, misinterpretation, subversion, Cold War propaganda, and outright BS.
My conspiracy theory is that most popular conspiracy theories are drafted like a 4chan prank by intelligence agencies to discredit other ‘adjacent’ conspiracy theories that are somewhat accurate, by taking reasonable suspicions and running with them as far as possible in the most absurd direction, nested with false corollaries that appear to confirm a target-demographic’s partisan biases/prejudices, so for any CT with a ring of plausibility, a segment of the demographic that notices it will also want to believe in a total whopper hand-made to embarrass/guilt-trip the uninitiated into incuriosity/complacence. The term “conspiracy theory” itself was coined in the CIA to do that exact thing; to pump smoke down the rabbithole.
I’m reading Foucault’s Pendulum, a novel about a group of men who, on a lark, combine a bunch of conspiracy theories and beliefs of various secret societies into one big conspiracy theory that they and others start believing in. And Georg happens to release a article about conspiracy theories while I’m reading it? It must be part of the conspiracy…
I would not have expected such a wholesale dismissal of conspiracy theories and “conspiratorial thinking”, and particularly of medical conspiracy theories, from the same Georg who also notably covered the American opiod crisis. Which was also a medical conspiracy theory, before it was medical conspiracy fact. Maybe it’s not really so absurd or foolish to sometimes see malevolent agency in governments and corporations and medical institutions.
Lumping outlandish conspiracies with other conspiracies is a misinformation tactic, so they can just say ‘oh you’re a conspiracy theorist’ and discredit dissenting voices. It is purposefully done like with Aliens etc, so anybody who questions it is immediately associated with a group of nutters. There is a fine difference between questioning 11/9 (inside job) and believing the world is flat. One is right, the other is stupid.
I think George Carlin was generally right about conspiracies. They aren’t real, exactly, but people in similar positions of power have like interests and they will always work to advance those interests. The famous “It’s all a big club and you ain’t in it,” routine. If you assume the worst about people in general, you’re rarely proven wrong and it’s way more plausible to believe that people are vultures who capitalize on tragedy rather than form ludicrous conspiracies to inflict it.
Because throughout history it’s been shown over and over again that powerful people behind closed doors make decisions that affect everyone and this goes from governments to corporations I think people who don’t believe in conspiracy theories aren’t thinking critically enough or they’re just far too indoctrinated into mainstream narratives to look at anything outside of that. Also the majority of people don’t know how to think critically any more sad.
To believe in all conspiracies is just as dumb as believing in non. The normies will lump them all together so if you question the human caused climate change narrative then you must be a flat earther. The term conspiracy theory is to akin to when the Chinese put dunce hats on dissidents. Where are the dissidents in this dictatorship. Oh yes, you believe there is no propaganda in the West.
We allow ourselves to be lied to politely, euphemistically and often. I often see the argument that its all down to correct education and information, censorship of bad ideas, but I rarely see institutional betrayal trauma as a factor. It’s obviously the largest factor, if all experts are unqualifiable and epistemically a person is relying on the trust one has in another’s knowledge, which is all nonexperiential information- And your institutional forces are inaccurate and untrustworthy….it’s all on the table…Nietchze is saying god is dead and the train means that we should take a second look at seances because science is magical and the future is terrifying and maybe just maybe alchemy can make a come back.
I have a hypothesis that the Ferengi (Star Trek The Next Generation) were a subconsciously meant to represent Japan. When the Ferengi were introduced in 1987 Japan was doing very well economically, buying up properties and businesses in the US plus there were many Japanese visiting the US. I think it is fair to say at that time, many Americans felt threatened by Japan’s success, so the Ferengi were represented as money grubbing society with strange backward customs, especially concerning females. Some people say I’m racist for expressing this idea, but I disagree, my best friend is a non-racist.
One thing I’ve heard over the years is that the ability to keep a secret is inversely proportional to the number of people needed to maintain it. Two people might keep a secret for a lifetime. A dozen people might keep a secret for years. A hundred people might keep a secret for a month or two. A thousand? Half a million? Those secrets would become well known facts in no time.
I think I’m too apathetic for conspiracy, and a certain part of me likes that that’s the EXACT trait that gets Conspiracy Theorist THE most riled up. If it came out in the news tomorrow that the moon WAS an artificial satellite, used to spy on mankind since time immemorial, I’d be confused/upset, sure, but I’m not going to start a march on my government. Therein lies the Millennial life, we’ve lived through disasters and uncovering of depraved behavior pretty much since birth. It’s not that we can’t imagine a good life, it’s that once you eat so much trash, you stop expecting anything to be any better. EDIT: I’ve realised that this post makes me sound like Cypher in the Matrix, who doesn’t care about the quality of his reality, as long as he’s comfortable. To be fair, I will stand for things that, in my immediate and limited power, I can effect change in. But if the moon is a decoy, It’s hard to get worked up about it.
I really enjoy your essays. Informative, interesting, educational and mostly without prejudice. Intellectual without patronism. With plenty of humour of course too. I’d be interested in your education. Of course, you have no need to share this but you are a natural communicator which I have the utmost respect for. Best. K
Yeh, it’s not useful to lump everything under “conspiracy theories”. There is a huge number of conspiracies that turned out to be true. There is also crazy nonsense. The problem being, our governments are so corrupt, and so inclined to lie, that it becomes easier to believe more conspiracies would exists, because of the historical precedent. I remember when “shills” and “bots” were an outlandish conspiracy, and anyone who thought companies or governments would pay people to push narratives online was called a nutjob, when it had been a reality for years already.
George’s closing comments on the basic psychological trappings of conspiracy culture is succint and valid. It cuts to the quick of it all. You will find no greater measure of the human need for agency – for a signal in the noise – for community, clarity, and order – than in the resurgence of crazy complots in an increasingly globalised, noisy, and chaotic world.
Conspiracies can almost by like inception. And in some, there are so many layers and rabbit holes that reality starts to—if not already—unravel more and more, the more you can finding patterns that aren’t really there. They’re just coincidence. Weird, yes. A little too convenient, also yes. But still just coincidence.
Conspiracy theories provide a valuable service in as much as they can be used to discredit genuine scepticism and muddy the waters in actual cover-ups. If someone says, ‘hey, I’m not buying the official narrative on (insert event here)… and I have good reason because (insert qualification or evidence here)’, the official response can be as simple as, ‘conspiracy theorists are questioning the narrative and claiming… (insert ridiculous claim here)’. We saw how the media in recent years has been used to shut down and discredit people with a single voice over many supposedly independent networks. What else is someone to think when faced with such things other than, ‘something is not right here…’… and BAM! suddenly they too are conspiracy theorists!
what is amazing is people who dont believe in conspiracy theories. people who believe that governments always tell the truth and media never lie. that astounds me. they readily believe previous lies and false flag attacks and so on if the government admitted to it. like the snowden leaks after the government admitted to spying on people. but somehow believe that it will never happen again.
My absolute favorite conspiracy theory is this Rocks are soft until you touch them! I personally think the with the whole Epstein fiasco, we saw something we shouldn’t have, played out in news segments and ending up with the death of that chap. Somehting incredibly sinister was happening there, who knows what, but it involved a lot of powerful people up to and including members of the British Royal family. We saw into a world we aren’t meant to and it almost opened the door for this kind of stuff, there are of course many other incidents over the years, but that one is the most recent I can recall.
You failed to include: because sometimes it is a conspiracy (Hillsborough etc). And, to a lesser extent, because the conspiracy being denied is often also lauded. For example the white replacement theory is, on the one hand, an absurd conspiracy. Yet whenever we see statistics to confirm a change in demographics, this fact is viewed as an entirely good thing that should be promoted and celebrated (even though it is apparently NOT happening).
These days, the difference between a conspiracy theory and undeniable fact is about six months or less. Like when Russia accused America of having biolabs in Ukraine and Victoria Nuland confirmed it less than a week later. (But not before the Biden admin and mainstream media dismissed it as conspiracy and propaganda.)
Why on earth would you believe everything that the Government and the media tell you when there is evidence to prove that they conspire against us. A conspiracy theory for someone is the search for the truth for another. The Tuskegee “experiment” was indeed a conspiracy and falsying of weapons of mass destruction was also a conspiracy on a mass scale. You’d be stupid and completely naive to think that the Powers That Be have our best interest at heart. When they always plays us off against each other. The most dangerous conspirators are people like Timothy McVeigh.
‘Conspiracy theorist’, means somebody who speculates on the secretive activities of others, when taken literally. In the context of how it is used, based on intent, it means ‘schizophrenic person whos speculations are totally baseless’. Were someone to say this in plain words, when addressing another, it would be more apparent to those taking part in the conversation, that there is a need for this individual to demonstrate this baselessness, and to prove that they’re qualified to assess another’s mental wellbeing. This is why the term ‘conspiracy theorist’ is used. It is a veiled insult for intellectual cowards.
It’s also not helped by MKUltra and then anything else the CIA is getting up to. Really puts the argument over “maintaining the lie” into context. You always hear “SOMEBODY would come forward and tell the truth” but never clarifies which “somebody” we should accept “the truth” from. Somebody is always coming forward and telling us something, most of the time that somebody and their something get dismissed, unless the correct combination of correlation comes forward, then we tend to forget we ever believed anything else. Why do people believe conspiracy theories? Probably for the same reason the documents around the assassination of JFK still haven’t been released in full. Speaking of conspiracies surrounding assas…I mean WMDs in Iraq, here in the UK at the same time we had a certain Dr. David Kelly.
Excellent article! The most sobering part of this research was at the very end: The realization that people who see patterns where they don’t exist (conspiracy) conversely do not recognize patterns that do exist (logic). There are serious societal implications because of this and we are seeing the repercussions in all levels of politics. Sigh…
I remember a case where the CIA was using alien conspiracies against people living near US air bases. One agent re tells the fact how he drove a man to suicide in the conspiracy, so he wouldn’t suspect the new models of jets flying by. That agent is a psychopath tho. Edit: The documentary is called Mirage Men.
I always found it disturbing how it seems that a good 80% of conspiracy theories or even more, seem to end up with origins in some level of antisemitism when you research the sources of the theories. It seems that antisemitism is one of the most major sources of conspiracy theories. It seems to work it’s way into almost all of them. And the thing is that most of the conspiracy theorists don’t seem to understand or be interested in knowing the history, and origins of the stuff they’re saying. SO MANY TIMES, I’ve seen conspiracy theorists parrot stuff, and I’ll think to myself, “Do you even know the source of where that came from?”
When people said the FDA were purposely allowing the story featured in ‘Dopesick’ to happen, because they are part funded by the industry they are there to regulate, before the truth came out if someone told you that they strongly believed that was going on and gave you some solid reasoning as to why their theory was true, would you have called that person a crazy conspiracy theorist?
I worked as a youth support worker for five years with people who had difficulties with addiction and employment. I asked one guy, who had all the main conspiracy theories pretty much memorized, why he doesn’t go and do something about it, if he truly believes that certain people are doing horrendous things. He said “What could he do?” I suggested the idea that there were many things he could do, if he truly believed them and was actually “morally outraged”. But, it always came back to being powerless. The beliefs allowed him to stay where he was, doing what he had always been doing. They shielded him from having to face up to his own responsibilities and since then I have always suspected this whenever someone brings one up to me. So it goes.
MK Ultra was a huge conspiracy theory up until it wasn’t. Edit: a rather innocent and amusing Conspiracy, is the reason that Supermarkets are always cold, is that the company wants you to buy things as quickly as possible and get out the store, to get as many people as possible through the till. Even if this were true, no Supermarket would ever admit that. The point is, the Important and the Rich will lie about things they do which is also how a conspiracy can be birthed. It isn’t always about unhinged, powerless individuals struggling to make sense of things around them.
The article is severely lacking a discussion of the weaponisation of the label “conspiracy theorist” to discredit any and all opposition without having to engage with any kind of arguments. Also, on the distinction between conspiracies and conspiracy theories: the disregard for evidence is the only good way to differentiate between the two; consensus isn’t a good metric. In Gallileo’s time, he would’ve been called a conspiracy theorist for going against the consensus, the geocentric model of the universe.
So a few collected thoughts I had while listening to this. * I think another important trait of the conspiracy theory is complexity. Conspiracy theories often have simple premises (Elvis is still alive, bigfoot is real, jews control the world) that then spiral into deeper, more complex plots, often involving a lot of crossover. It’d be interesting to find out if this is a consequence of trying to explain away obvious fallacies, a tendency for conspiracy theorists to cherry pick ideas from other conspiracy theories, or some combination thereof. I don’t know of many conspiracy theories which begin and end on a single, simple track, at least not any that take themselves seriously. * I’d wager that conspiracy theories are just as prevalent – if not more rife – among those of the upper classes as they are among lower income, lower class people. People like Tsar Nicholas II, Elon Musk and Marjorie Taylor Greene show that powerful, wealthy, upper income people can and do engage in conspiracy theory thinking on a regular basis. Personally, I’d argue that they are even more vulnerable because of their general lack of worldly experience, rampant egotism and elitism, reclusive natures and – rather ironically – their tendency to be the targets of conspiracy theories themselves. I just think the reason why we don’t see it reported on is that the upper classes are, as ever, unavailable for questioning.
I think stupid conspiracies are seeded to make all conspiracy theory seem irrational. Then “smart” people focus on aliens and borax to deliegitimize any awareness of blatantly obvious military industrial complex, financial cartel, imperialism, gentrification, population control that’s done right out in the open.
“Conspiracy theory” is an unfortunately chosen technical term. Because conspiracy theorists will take it literally and point to the fact that real conspiracies exist, and that people have theories about those, as evidence that being a conspiracy theorist is legitimate. In Germany at least we’ve taken to calling them “conspiracy myths” instead, which I think better encapsulates the function they have for believers, too. They explain complicated messy reality in an emotionally engaging moral narrative with villains etc., the same way traditional mythology does.
the only conspiray theory i think is plausible is maybe “epstein didn’t kill himself”. Is it possible he actually did kill himself? sure. but it’s also possible prison guards were bribed to look the other way, and some violent prisoners were paid to kill a predator who they already despised, because that stuff absolutely happens in prisons all the time and is already very well documented.
This is a lovely article and i appreciate the work you put into it. I feel one sub-topic is missing though. Aren’t some conspiracy theories eventually shown to be true? Part of the conspiracy story is that groups (like the US gov’t) conspire to do wack shit, like overthrow South American gov’ts with some regularity. It really makes them seem capable of, you know, doing other shit like that. What about conspiracies where the truth seems stranger than fiction. The official story of Jeffery Epstein’s demise, Oswald acting alone, the sinking of the Lusitania….all feels pretty weird. I mean, good lord, “the business plot” happened in this universe. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
I think a major part of someone who strongly believes in conspiracy theories and cannot be convinced otherwise is usually that they have a relatively strong belief in their own ability to reason while dismissing the intelligence of others. In other words, believers tend to be supercharged examples of the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect.
The only conspiracy “theory” that I think has any possible weight is the one that the killing shot that killed JFK was by the Secret Service. The idea is that Oswald was still the main guy who carried it out alone, but the head shot was on accident when the driver hit the gas and the agent fired the M-16 on accident killing Kennedy.
One family spends 10% of their net worth getting the sheriff, the DA, and several judges elected. This family has had two congressmen and one senator in office. One family has spend 50% of their net worth paying bail, court fees, child support, and gets felony stopped several times a year. One of these families believe in some conspiracy theories. Studies confirm.
I feel like deriding any and all beliefs that go against wider consensus by labelling them as the now ugly word “conspiracy” isn’t a good thing. The idea that no one is hiding anything and you’re a crazy silly person for thinking otherwise is quite ignorant. It’s the same with bunching theories or the belief of them together: imagine someone talking about MK ultra and you compare them to a flat Earther. It’s all political foppishness
One thing, on that right/ left conspiracy theory graph, the MLK assassination was listed among the conspiracy theories. Am I the only one a little shook to see MLK assassination on a conspiracy theory list next to shit like covid vax? J. Edgar had literally been trying to get him to kill himself for years. That ain’t a conspiracy. That’s circumstantial evidence demonstrating clear motive and likely intent. I’m not saying it definitely involved the FBI, I’m just saying they should probably have been a suspect. Ole J. Edgar absolutely wasn’t above looking the other way.
Ironically, people are more prone to believing “Conspiracy Theories” after Covid because of how manipulative nearly EVERY authority figure – from doctors to the media to politicians to non-political pundits – was in trying to support every aspect of the Covid response. It wasn’t just that they were consistently wrong – Ivermectin was “horse paste” – it was they were aggressively and offensively against even the hint of needing to correct themselves. (Trying to get them to even admit that Ivermectin had ANY use in Humans took nigh-superhuman efforts… and Ivermectin won a NOBEL PRIZE for its use in humans!) So now, the best defense against Conspiracy Theories – the “Appeal to Authority” (“I’m a Photographer, I can tell you that it’s impossible to fake those photographs.” to reject the Moon Landing Hoax, for example) – will now be lumped in with the Fallacy that shares the same name.
Some conspiracy theories are fun to think about, but I do firmly and wholeheartedly believe in one conspiracy theory. The uber rich and government actively encourage infighting and dissension amongst the general population. If we’re fighting amongst ourselves we’ll be totally distracted from what they’re doing. If we view each other as the enemy, we’ll never have the resources to topple their empire of injustice and inequity…so yeah, I’ll get my tinfoil hat now.
My question for basically any conspiracy theory is “How many people need to know about this for it to work?” This is the same government that couldn’t keep a break-in and a blowjob secret, and you’re telling me they’re roping in hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of people with no leaks and no solid evidence of any kind? Sure.
Why? Because there are so many conspiracies. Conspirators are never captured and arrested. There are no conspiracy police specialists, empowered to open all doors and examine all records. There will be no secret places or secret records, or secret communications, that can’t be thoroughly turned over by police investigation. Does anyone fear the investigations? They wouldn’t try to deny conspiracy theories if they weren’t. They would encourage conspiracy investigations, all open and transparent, and even filmed live in progress for the amateur enjoyment of all.
The label “conspiracy theory” is always used as a slur. Mostly it refers to conjecture on the part of a paranoid individual or someone seeking fame or notoriety or some kind of gain in the way of scamming believers or to push a narrative and cause a stir. Whatever the reason, of late, to me it means being enlightened by people who highlight that there doesn’t have to be secret meetings with “elites” and government types giving shady deals and whatnot. It means that certain interests of those in positions of power and influence align, and force an outcome to their mutual benefit. You have to be a complete ignoramus to not understand that big tech, big pharma, the media and government often converge on things that make them bedfellows, and when they can further their own benefits of a certain outcome, they will do their best to suppress a way in which that will not come about. This is just human nature. Powerful people always want to cling onto more and more of it and control everything and everyone. It’s no more a conspiracy theory than the sun being hot. Always follow the money and you will find the answer to your questions 99% of the time.
Some conspiracy theories are ridiculous, while others make so much sense that frankly, people are dumb or naive not even consider the possibility that they’re true, especially when so many have already been proven legit. It’s not a one size fits all, and the origins of the term actually originate with the CIA using their Operation Mockingbird puppets in the establishment corporate press to smear anyone who believed the Warren Commission didnt pass the smell test. That’s when they manufactured and popularized the propaganda smear term “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” to get people to unthinkingly disregard anyone daring to ask honest questions about the official narrative of the day. People should have the discernment not to automatically believe every “conspiracy theory” thrown their way, but I also don’t think that people who disregard every “conspiracy theory” without asking any questions first have a thinking brain in their heads. People willing to automatically swill down every drop of prooaganda given to them shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than the person who automatically believes every hair-brained illogical theory they read on the internet. Why do more and more people buy into “conspiracy theories,” both true ones and false? It’s because the people telling them what the acceotabke opinions and positions are have been repeatedly proven to be untrustworthy and manipulative liars.
The way conspiracy theories are presented for ridicule usually only adds to their possible validity. Also often plausible conspiracies are lumped together with ridiculous ones to diminish them but this only strengthens both. Like if I was to say the CIA can hack into cars to assassinate people and the moon is made of cheese. The CIA does have that ability.
You know Georg, I expected an intriguing article where you’d almost certainly go into the semantics of ‘conspiracy theorist’, before going on to make sweeping statements.. Then I remembered it’s not 2016 anymore, and most youtubers like yourself have been astro-turfed hard into treating the mere act of speculating on the activities of power politicians (especially left wing ones), as though it is some form of schizophrenia that ‘endangers our democracy’. I think there’s something very dangerous about calling speculation a dangerous activity Georg, and the real threats to our democracy are people like you who’ll take a buck and a few threats before they cave in and start parroting NLP
9/11 was a conspiracy! A group of Islamic extremists, predominantly tied to Al Queda, conspired to hijack airliners and crash them into the World Trade Centre Towers, the White House, and the Pentagon. Clearly a conspiracy; and 100% the product of the historical and ongoing foreign policy of the USA.
those five rules are self evident 1 the idea of thigs being caused by something else is a theory 2 obviously the thing is deliberate, that’s what conspiring is, planning 3 obviously its multiple people, one person hatches a plan, two people conspire 4 if it wasn’t a threat, the conspirators would likely not hide it. and if it’s deceptive for other reasons its still not known. if its not hidden or just out there as knowledge, you would not theorize, you would know 5 again, you cant theorize a well known fact, all you can do at that point is repeat common knowledge. bonus add on 6 yeah, obviously if it were done by your in group, you would know about it and therefore not theorize. the fact that you’re theorizing puts you on the outside of that group that is conspiring. lay of the hep tang, these articles are getting to be myopic.
The thing I find pretty funny about conspiracies in general is the fact, people will believe Dave down the pub that claims to have been abducted by aliens and then stripped naked and left in the middle of a cornfield with a pig and a cock drawn on his face. However when the same theory is stated to be true by the government, FBI and NASA people are like ” Nope its bullshit. I’ll take my UFO stories from the man that has tattoos just to remember what kids belong to him, thank you very much ”
While I do agree with the overall message conveyed in this article, I think Georg skips over how the ‘mainstream’ consensus/media has absolutely ruined its reputation. Ignored the established facts that were once regarded as conspiracy theories. I don’t think that there is some monolithic conspiracy led by some shadow government organization, but I hardly think it’s a ‘conspiracy’ that various government organizations and NGOs would want to control public discourse and opinion for their own aims. To blindly accept the mainstream consensus is just as idiotic as blindly accepting fringe conspiracy theories. I think it would have been a better article to discuss and explore this same topic through the lens of conspiracy theories that turned out to be correct and ones that did not. Then examine a critical thought process one can use to judge them. Just my two cents.
Well, we know that America has done exactly that before (with regards to 911). Look at pearl harbour, an attack that the FDR administration knew about, but allowed to happen in order to gain popular support for joining the war effort. Polls taken before pearl harbour showed a disapproval rating for entering the war ranging between 70-80 percent. It wasn’t popular, but they needed to find a way change that. It’s also tied in with the balfour declaration and the formation of Israel. 911 was likewise about waging war on all of Israel’s neighbours.
Australia has 18% deaths and isn’t slowing down, since a concoction was put in people. Same thing around the world but only for countries who gave the concoctions. Funerals are becoming a weekly event. With no concern, reasons or investigations by authorities to come up with answers, what other option is there other than “conspiracies?” Maybe only the paranoid people looking for patterns, whilst carving wooden swords to fend themselves from the lizard people running around on this frisbee planet have such thoughts. At this rate, they will be the only ones left.
My brother believes in the conspiracy theory about litterboxes and kitty litter being put in schools for the use of children that identify as cats. I was able to explain why the litterboxes and kitty litter were really there, as an emergency toilet during an active shooter situation, but he still believes the conspiracy theory. Far as I can tell, it’s the only one he really believes in. It’s sad, he’s not foolish typically, generally well educated, but still fell into that trap. I’m at a loss to explain why.
Thank you for taking the time in doing this article for the public. I find that these days I actually have to ask new people I meet whether they believe in conspiracy theories, to see if we will get on. It saves a lot of hassle in the end. One thing I do find scary though, is that conspiracy theorists are not open minded. I always say, yes sure show me the proof. I don’t mind being wrong. And the people I have met who are can’t. Or the proof they have is already from a source which has been discredited. And ontop of that when you show them respect as a person and agree to disagree they just turn on you. No open mindedness at all. It’s alarming and sad. Life is already hard enough, why bother with the rest of these conspiracies?
The smartest thing is to think in terms of likeness. Don’t take any thing for granted, if there are no clear evidence. For example – I find it very unlikely however possible that 9/11 was an inside job. Things like this happened before. Apartment bombings in Russia to get population support for Chechen War.
Bush Admin. did clean the crime scene. The wreckage was carted away and complex details, like deadly air quality, and explosive residues found at scene, were ignored for a war. Bush Admin did take nearly 500 days before opening 9/11 inquest. The only cover up in our own intel failures. Other terrorists did demolish the buildings from within that day. The buildings were readied. I dont think the Bush Admin could have survived reelection if not for military flex immediately after the attacks. There was a terrorist attack. Three heavy steel framed buildings collapsed into their footprints, on tv, many witnessed. Compare footage to other demolitions. I dont think Bush Administration lied about terrorists. The problem is remaining available media and evidence give incomplete story, thats all. Its a lack of data. Not a conspiracy from within, but from a determined out of power, foriegn economic power.
I tend to only believe in conspiracies that make the most sense and seem to be a bit more believable for example saying that there’s shape shifting lizards among us yeah definitely not believable for me but being told that all media companies are lying to us and are either stretching the truth or faking the story all together does seem a bit more believable to me.
Just using the term, “Conspiracy Theory,” is a demonstration of a remarkably closed mind. Yes, there are people who honestly believe that the world is flat. I’ve talked to a couple of them on Fecesbook. It was, honestly, pretty sad. They had ‘friends’ who would pretend to agree with them. I can’t say with any certainty that they were definitely just pretending to amuse themselves but in some cases it seemed pretty likely. There have clearly been quite a lot of conspiracies even if you only count the ones perpetrated by the US government. Not conspiracy, “theories,” but actual conspiracies that were initially dismissed and have since been proven to be unquestionably factually conspiracies. Why wouldn’t people think the worst of a government that has been historically perfectly willing to, for instance, subject military personnel to nuclear blasts simply to find out what the radiation would do to them over the long term? You can’t imagine that the people who came up with the idea to do that thought that it wasn’t going to cause any harm to those soldiers. No sensible person thinks that the FBI hasn’t been intentionally radicalizing people in an effort to justify their budget. How about the Russian collusion conspiracy perpetrated by the Clinton campaign that, in fact, turned out to be a conspiracy on the part of the Clinton campaign and various cooperative government agencies in an effort to discredit Trump’s campaign. (No, I am definitely not a big fan of Trump and never have been.
For proof that if somebody believes one conspiracy they are likely to believe in others just look at how many famous Flat Earthers died from Covid. Flat Earther 99% chance also anti vax. My best friend from Highschool Class of ’95 has always been a huge 9/11 Conspirecy theorist he was also antivax and also 350lbs. Everytime I talked to him I made sure to tell him to get vaxxed. In Sept 14th, 2021 he died from Covid. It was same day Norm MacDonald died. That was a rough day.
because conspiracies actually happen….. a lot. Sure, there are alot of dumb ones, that are just nonsense… but history is full of conspiracies that actually happened, and they will keep happening in the future. The question you need to ask, is why do people NOT believe in conspiracy theories? why do people use this phrase, to dismiss individuals they disagree with? why do people use “conspiracy theory” as a way to reject any reality that dosnt math their preconceived notions and personal agenda? why do people blindly follow propaganda, when the “conspiracy theory” is supported by endless, irrefutable evidence?
well because they keep ending up being true. The difference between “government A is being supported by government B for financial gain and ownership of the C trade” is different from “Aliens are putting homosexual probes up your ass to make your children question God”. That “conspiracy” is somehow used to describe both of these extremes as synonymous means the word doesn’t really mean much anymore. I’m a conspiracy theorist, I believe Roosevelt was reelected based on the improved economy but is lying about future projections, and will just throw it all into war to hide his government’s failings. ….oh wait.
Many conspiracy “theories” aren’t really theories at all, but a high-level conclusion connecting a number of contradictory and often shifting theories. For example, many 9/11 truthers believe that there was a cover-up of the real perpetrators… but if you talk to two different truthers, you’re likely to get three different theories which vary widely as to who was responsible and how and why. And if you provide a compelling challenge to a truther, you may witness them change the theory in real time to circumvent your critique. In fact, there is surprisingly little which truthers as a whole agree upon. This should be a huge red flag for conspiracy theorists. Instead, it’s seen as validation: “So many other people have reached the same conclusion as me! They’re all wrong about the specifics, but that just shows how obvious the truth is. I must be on to something!”
You don’t discuss the exposure of actual conspiracies by governments (eg. The Pentagon Papers). Also how conspiracy theories might be deliberately be promoted as a psyop to divert attention. In the absence of a rational and scientific understanding of phenomena, superstition of one form or another will fill the void. The crucial problem is that scientific inquiry into human social development is both hard and this inquiry is impinged on by the material interests of those who don’t want things to change. The liberal-capitalist mythology that we are divided into social classes and that capitalism is still progressive is now being ground up in the millstones of the present breakdown as the capitalist class of each country turns to war, austerity and dictatorship to “overcome” the intractable contradictions of production for profit.
I’m in not much doubt for much said here, but I do find it curious that everything was cherry picked to ridicule only “right” wing consiratorial thinking. And furthermore what I personally dont appreciate is how the word conspiracy is being increasingly used as a switch for stop to think and to believe the opposite no matter what. Especially if a said conspiracy is coming from the opposite political camp.
I think the number one thing driving conspiracies now – maybe not in the past – is the fact that you have such a biased, partisan media (no matter what mainstream media you turn to, it’s pandering to somebody) and there are so many lies, so often.. many of which are called conspiracy theories and attacked until they’re proven right, like suggesting the Wuhan Lab as the origin point for the pandemic.. that people have lost all faith and are more willing to trust nutty, nutty people than corporate liars, since they’re getting lied to either way. tl/dr The government and corporate media have lied so much that effectively people have detached from reality and then act surprised when people no longer believe them.
This is great information overall but the study claiming that both parties believe in conspiracy theories equally is pretty flawed. It equates completely unhinged conservative theories with actual conspiracies such as Russia influencing American politics. We have the Mueller Report and a senate intelligence committee report showing exactly how Russia influenced the 2016 election and colluded with the Trump campaign to do so. Russia spent a lot of money on ads, Manafort sent polling data to Russian agents, etc. It’s not a theory, it’s a documented conspiracy.
The numbers are likely on the rise due to easier access to infor, good and bad, true and false, along with the democratization of recording things to show to others. I’ve dove right into the conspiracy theory waters and, well, some of what gets labeled a conspiracy theory winds up being true, but the sheer volume of it all and people’s general lack of skill when separating shit from shinola. The biggest problem here is that the stuff that winds up being real is tossed in with the garbage. Also people who look into this sort of stuff for some reason wind up buying all of it. On the flip side people who reject it all outright have the same problem just in reverse. Great example- the recent covid mess. People who saw it as having the danger hyped up far above it’s actual danger seem to be the same people who thought the vaccine was going to be used in conjunction with 5G to kill us all. The other end didn’t think they were putting nano bots in the vaccines, but also thought the world was ending because that’s what the TV and government told them was happening. The number of fatal cases was vastly over reported. Those members of government with a tyrannical streak used covid as an excuse, go watch anything about all of the people involved with the “great reset” for examples. At the same there were plenty of doomsday conspiracy theories about covid which were pretty easy to poke holes in even at the time it was happening. As per usual thei middle path turns out to be the most sensible.