(01-08-2021, 05:44 AM)Margan Wrote: I have been into conspiracy theories for at least 10 years now – it started out of curiosity and of course like many others, I saw that what politicians talk about and what they actually do does clash a lot of times. And conspiracy theories offer explanations which many times seem more logical than the „official stories“ (9/11 etc).
That is a phenomenon mainly in Angloamerican countries (namely US and UK), especially in US, where lying has no legal consequences. You can lie your way to hell, and when challenged in court, you can enter the court and bluntly say that you lied, and deny any claim you made, and you can again start lying the moment you exit the courtroom. There is no legal repercussion.
That is why not only lying in politics, but also lying in everything else is a very lucrative option for a career or money:
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechcons...7476096429
One single operator - just one example - is making $30,000/month by selling ads from his website where he dispenses conspiracy theories. And that is saying something because making money via selling ads is very difficult since a decade or more because ads are very inefficient. They pay dimes. To be able to make $30k/month from such ads, the person must be getting an insane amount of traffic to his site. Which he already explains in the interview.
And these people must come up with fresh content every other month or readers will get bored. Hence the seemingly endless array of conspiracies which just seem to be popping up.
The reality is that, no human, organization, nor entire states on this planet can conspire that much. Its just not humanely possible. Neither possible from an organization standpoint. Things just dont move that fast.
So overwhelming majority of what conspiracionists sell is just bullsh*t.
And the actual conspiracies are pretty boring and obvious:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/s...et-allende
Nixon giving CIA $10 million in 1973 to create an economic crisis in Chile to delegitimize its socialist government and stage a coup because the socialist government had the audacity to try rising the minimum wage a few dollars and this upset Pepsi-Cola company's fruit picking operation in Chile.
Old and boring. Doesnt sell.
But 'imminent mass arrests', 'conservative hero X fighting the deep state without anyone knowing', 'pending alien invasion' (though not as popular as it used to), 'chips in X' (head, body, vaccine, shoe, whatever) are much less boring.
So you end up with the cesspit that is the conspiracy theory-sphere.
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Therefore your conclusion is correct:
Much better to tune out of such nonsense and concentrate on bettering oneself, the society, moving forward. It actually produces results. Even if through little steps. It just works.
Listening to profiteers getting rich over gullibility of people and waiting things to happen - doesnt work.
And there is little need for following such sources for truth anyways, for there is little need for the negatively polarized to mount such conspiracies because negative acts can be committed in the open and with praise:
CEO which fires half of company employees and makes the rest work twice as much gets applauded for cutting costs in half and gets interviews printed in financial magazines.
The establishment bails out the stock market as tens of millions are unemployed, without healthcare and food.
Conservative military-industry figure who advocated for Iraq war advocates more military spending and he is considered 'protecting the nation'.
Invasive spying and anti-freedom laws are for 'security'.
Healthcare lobbies sell people dying out if they cant pay for healthcare as 'choice', and it is considered 'freedom'.
Actual neonazis wearing actual nazi symbols saying how killing 6 million people was not enough, talk and organize openly.
People willingly carry a device which can listen in on their every conversation, track their location, altitude, even the humidity in their location along with them everywhere.
Where is the need for any conspiracy in such an environment?
You even know the routine drill of "There are *repressed* democracy-loving *freedom fighters* in *country X*, we must liberate them". After which comes the invasion, bombing or at least, ample amounts of taxpayer money going to extremists abroad. Even that's not a conspiracy anymore and those who propagate it feel absolutely no need to do anything hidden. They just say those stuff to justify what they are going to do, which they are going to do anyway. So...
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Therefore there is absolutely no need to waste any time, and even less, spiritual energy on such conspiracy-theory hobbies. Leave aside put one's hopes in them.
Even taking little steps to do good for the society, oneself, loved ones, is much, much better use of someone's time.
If you want a pastime in a similar direction, just read history articles at Wikipedia. They are extremely well fleshed out, details are pretty solid, there is enough actual conspiracy and gore (the medieval feudal history was pretty treacherous), a lot of protagonists, a lot of events, a lot of incredible stuff happening, extremely good reads. And you end up with a lot of knowledge, which over time leads to a pretty sharp understanding of history and society and how things work.
Wikipedia is pretty solid as a source in contrast to what those who are against it for contradicting their narrative says: an average article at Wikipedia has more references than an average master's thesis, and that is a major reason why using Wikipedia is banned in many universities because students just cheat by copy/pasting articles and changing a few paragraphs and references, instead of doing their own research for their own thesis.