[Mark Tyson]

I went by my parents house today to sit in while our plumber did some work. As usual we were BS'ing about guns, hunting, the gummint, etc.

Then the topic of politics comes up, and then he gets weird, and I mean weird. I mean grassy knoll weird. I mean black helicopters weird. In the blink of an eye I find myself sitting next to Oliver Stone speaking with a straight face about the freemasons and the new world order.

I waited in vain for the punch line. I listened with growing alarm as the conversation just got more and more convoluted, with conspiracies within conspiracies, and dark forces pulling the strings of power.
Everyone's involved: corporations, the media, the government, the UN, all in a centuries old conspiracy.

Now this is a guy I've known for quite a while. He's a smart, working class guy, very practical, works hard, got a stable family, steady job and(it seemed) a good head on his shoulders. He does not wear an aluminum foil helmet. But somehow he has all kinds of crazy ideas about the way the world works.

Do any of you guys know someone like this? Why do apparently normal people believe such outlandish ideas?

[I hope he's not reading this. I'm probably being added to his 'list' LOL]

"Are you so blind you can't see the truth . . . or have they gotten to you, too?!"

[Barbara]

Hehe. Yep, my old boss. Very picture of a modern business woman, very well-dressed, professional, and absolutely certain the Illuminati are in control. She almost had a tizzy over Coviscint.

[Wildalaska]

People with these type of wierd paranoias (and also rascists, homophobes and anti semites)while oestensibly normal are warped personalities that try to control their own feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy by blaming "others"...

WildjuniorpsycologykitfinishedhedAlaska

[w4rma]

IMHO, the folks with the most control are the board members, CEOs and plurality-owners of the Fortune-100 corporations. They "lead" from the smoke-filled backrooms and the corporate boardrooms. They rarely appear on TV and when they do, they are usually shown in a very positive light (remember, some of them own big media).

It is my observation that there really is a whole bunch of bad news stuff going on in the background. Conspiracy theories are various folks' attempts at trying to figure out how to explain some of these things.

[PlayTheAces]

I guess it depends on the definition of normal.

One guy I work with has been abducted by aliens twice, and claims next time they won't take him alive.

Another joined an Indian tribe to avoid being subjected to U.S. law. He spends a fair amount of time in court.

Another recent retiree got in a bit of trouble a number of years back for taking potshots at a neighbor about a quarter mile down the road. Claimed the neighbor's shortwave setup was actually a mind control system aimed directly at him. This guy honestly came to work with aluminum foil inside his welders cap.

I'm not making this stuff up, and these guys hold down jobs and more or less function in society. Sometimes I wonder if our plant isn't sitting on top of an ancient toxic dump.

[Parker Dean]

Conspiracy theories are various folks' attempts at trying to figure out how to explain some of these things.


I think that's it in a nutshell.

In times past people used gods and their capriciousness to explain the world. Now that having a god for every little thing is passe the replacement is conspiracies of powerful people that control everything.

[rock jock]

I would say that conspiracies give people a sense of control in a confusing world.

[geekWithA.45]

Seeing conspiracies is a part of our human wetware. It combines a lot of individual elements of our psyches and the perceptual shortcuts our system takes.

Simply put, we are hyper attuned to extract signal from noise, and we don't always get it right.

The factors I've been able to isolate are:


-Constellation Phenomena: We see patterns in the stars. They aren't there, but we see them anyway.

-Our discomfort with emergent phenomena. Organizations and groups function differently than individuals, in some subtle and not so sublte ways. If you pile 100 honest men together, and give them the task of collecting taxes, you'll get the evil inherent in the IRS. It emerges from the macro system, even though no one put it there.

-The human tendency to ascribe events to intentionality. If something happens, it's easier to grasp the event as being the result of the intention of a single man, or a small group, than emergent behaviour, or the sum vector of arbitary circumstances. In other words, given a choice between conspiracy and cockup, humans will gravitate towards conspiracy.

-And finally, the existence of conspiracies is validated by the occassional, factual, actual existence of....conspiracies. In other words, sometimes, they really are out to get you.

[Sean Cloherty]

Don't bother trying to run Mark. We know where you live - bwah hah hah hah hah!

The word conspiracy or the phras conspiracy theory has been beaten to death so that even using those words in the appropriate application will get you a lot of hard stares.

Yes there are conspiracies. Yes there are theories about conspiracies. Some of each are true!

A father and son conspired to rob the local bank in my town (2nd time in 2 years:( , the 9/11 hijacksers were part of a large conspiracy that succeeded. FDR conspireed to pack the USSC.

You get the picture. I am not fond of whacked out theories with little substance, nor am I impressed with those who immediately dismiss them because the word (phrase) has been hackneyed and abused.

So what news of Jim Morrison in Africa?

[Bill Hook]

I only believe the conspiracy theories that revolve around the "democratic" party's attempts to undermine the 2nd amendment. ;)


Seriously, some conspiracies are true, but it would be a cold day in hell that a plumber (or anyone not in the govt.) would be aware of them before they actually transpired.

[jimpeel]

I had a guy register here at the motel one night and we started BSing and he says "The thing that p---es me off is the Clintons giving our missile technology to the Jewish, Communist, ... (I went blank trying to digest Jewish Communists so missed the next three or four adjectives) ... Chinese."

I said "Jewish Communists?"

He says "Yeah, Jewish Communists."

I said "Now don't take me down some patriot mythology path."

He gets shaky, starts backing toward the door raising his voice "Go read about the Essenes. Look up the Essenes and read about them."

Out the door he goes.

Now I know a few things that I have picked up during my life and I have heard of the Essenes but don't know in what context. So off I go to my computer and look up "essenes". Checked with dictionary.com to make sure of the spelling just to be sure.

There it is, the Essenes. A jewish sect. The guys who historians believe wrote and stashed the Dead Sea Scrolls. They also ceased to exist as a sect in the second century A.D.

I felt bad that I didn't have this information at the tip of my tongue as it would have been highly entertaining to watch his face as I informed him that he was 1,800 years behind the curve.

Ah, well, lost opertunities.

[Psssniper]

The guys with all the conspiracy theories are just a step away from getting flushed out of the Matrix :D

[Khornet]

all those CEOs and Fortune 500 types aren't running our lives.

Take a look in the mirror.

Those guys sweat bullets every day trying to read our minds and figure out what we'll buy so thay can make big bucks. If they guess wrong, it's billions down the drain. Think of the Edsel, for crying out loud. They are less free than we lowly consumers are. And we are free to buy their stuff, or buy the other guy's if we prefer. Their loyalty, thank God, is to the almighty dollar, and whatever sells. We have 'em by the you-know-what.

To think that the big corporations control us is like thinking the elephant has power over the mosquitoes which torment him. Sure he can squash a few, but it'll make no difference. The CEO conspiracy theory is as loony as any other.

[w4rma]

Respond to what I said, not a strawman that you set up, Khornet.

I said, "folks with the most control". I did *not* say, "folks who are running our lives".

[Khornet]

that's a distinction without a difference. Semantics, no more. The implication of your words is perfectly clear, and I responded to it. Now it's your turn to respond to me.

BTW, here's my point in better form from an old column I wrote:

SAVED BY THAT GRAY FLANNEL SUIT

Sloan Wilson's famous book The Man In the Gray Flannel Suit purports to deal with the stultifying conformity of 1950s business life -- the need to look, think, and act like everyone else in order to climb the ladder. It's often held up as the classic expose of corporate life in general and the 1950s in particular. Rereading it the other day, I drew a different and more optimistic conclusion: corporate America, gray flannel suits and all, is a natural consequence of liberal democracy.

It's true that conformity is a hallmark of totalitarian states, and even more so of socialist command-economy states like China, but it's a conformity imposed from above by a single leader or ruling elite. In the western capitalist democracies, however, success requires adaptation to the broad majority of citizens, whose wishes cannot be commanded from above. Because customers are free to purchase the competition's product, their leverage is an iron fist compared to the control of a Politburo. Elephants can be circumvented because there are few of them and they are easily seen, but clouds of mosquitoes can quickly break the will of the largest elephant.

Today's Corporate Man must not only provide a quality product at a reasonable price, but must show the customers that he's worthy. This can take some regrettable turns, as when clothing manufacturers take public stances on social and environmental issues, but nonetheless it provides a healthy check. We can't elect or impeach our captains of industry, but we can vote with our pocketbooks and our feet, which is both quicker and more merciless. If your quality, price, and public face don't meet the expectations of the masses, judgment is harsher and more swift than anything Congress can impose. No lawyer can find loopholes in the verdict of the buying public, and its loyalty cannot be bargained for in Senate back rooms. As long as there is no middleman, no buffer between the customers and the merchants, the voice of the people is perfectly heard. It's when Congressmen step in that the information becomes garbled and the force of public opinion is diverted from its target and used instead to purchase votes or to leverage unrelated political projects.

It's been remarked that in Communist countries that which is not specifically permitted is forbidden, while in Western democracies that which is not specifically forbidden is permitted. This distinction is nowhere more important than in the regulation of American business where, in theory at least, we are free to do as we wish so long as we do not violate certain laws designed to prevent criminal practices. In this climate the full potential of human creativity and enterprise can be realized, and it's the possible loss of this climate that's the most toxic fallout of this spate of corporate scandals. If we're not careful, our Congressmen will make political hay while shackling American business even more tightly than before.

The goose may have laid a few lead eggs this time, but the gold ones will be back if we can just keep Congress' hands off. Then the voice of the consumer and investor will be heard, and things will be set right. Punishment is even now being meted out to the offenders, as the financial pages show.

[JackShandy]

I knew a guy sorta like that; just not quite right in the head. Came to work one day dressed as Hitler. No joke. I stupidly got into a fight with him over a cartoon the same day (I think).

[2dogs]

What if ALL the conspiracy theories are true?:uhoh:

[Chris Rhines]

Weird is in the eye of the beholder. Many of my friends, relatives, and coworkers believe in an unanswerably powerful supernatural being that compels them to act in a certain manner. I find this very weird.

- Chris

[Skunkabilly]

Everyone is normal until you get to know them...

At least that's what the government wants you to beleive.... :uhoh:

They got to you didn't they? :scrutiny:

[w4rma]

Khornet, I meant and said, "folks with the most control".

It is a distinction with a difference. I didn't mean your phrase, therefore I didn't say your phrase. I meant what I said, not your straw man (http://www.nctimes.net/news/2001/20010323/t.html). I specifically used that phrase because I will not go as far as to endorse your phrase, because your phrase, IMHO, is currently untrue.

[ravinraven]

Rats!

Did I buy that new helmet for nothing?

Actually, I think the weirdest theory out there is the theory that things will be great once the government finally grabs all the guns. I have three friends who are political basket cases who never tire of telling me this.

ravinraven

[Waitone]

Yea, I got a friend who defaults to a world conspiracy at every opportunity. He is like most people wanting to make sense of a lot of nonsensical happenings.

I do believe conspiracies are a fact of life. Reality is humanoids have been conspiring together since humanoids had a name. All government is is one big conspiracy superbowl. The prize for the winner is power until another conspiracy can unseat the victor. Grab your Cato copy of the Declaration of Independence and carefully read it. You'll see that alot of the beef the colonials had with Britain had to do with agents of influence exercising unjust authority of the colonies. Where I draw the line is I do not think it possible for transgenerational conspiracies to exist. Today's one world opponents and what I call the tinfoil hat crowd want to believe.

Everytime my friend descends into his tinfoil hat mode I offer an alternative explanation. Ferinstance, he is convinced this insanity we call illegal immigrations is caused the by George Soros and Maurice Strong issuing orders to Dubya to erase national borders. He thinks all of congress is in on it because it has done nothing to fix the problem. My response is yes Soros and Strong may think erasing borders is a good idea, but Dubya responds to a different set of pressures. I think he is counting votes. Congress won't act because 1>they count votes also, 2>most likely everyone is congress is the beneficiary of "guided investment advice". Corporatism makes congress all quite legally participants because they are the one's who benefit when their portfolio fatten because of the economic impact of illegals immigrants.

Can I prove it? Nope! But I do know "guided investment advice" is a reality. I know precious few congressmen leave congress without have accumulated a personal nest egg. I also know corporatism infests both parties.

Am I saying congress is working against the benefit of the American voter? Yep. Is it because of the Illuminait, Trilateralists, Bilderburgers, Maurice Strong, and George Soros. Nope. It is because of good ol' fashioned filthy lucre.

[Justin]

Khornet hit the nail on the head.

As for those who buy whacked out conspiracy theories about black helicopters, aliens, and shady organizations of cigarrette-smoking men, well I personally chalk it all up to a faulty or improperly tuned BS detector.

[Wildalaska]

Lets see we have:

The Priory of Zion
The Freemasons
ITT
The Rosicrucians
The Illuminati
the UN
ZOG
The Group of 7 (or 11 or 12)

Any missing?

WildmindcontrolAlaska

[corncob]

the great part about them is that there is no way to know whether or not they are true...

That's why they call them "theories."

I agree with Geek. We can't help but look for signal amongst the noise, and different people have very different standards of proof. The entertainment value of conspiracy pushers is limitless. I think that's the REAL reason the internet was invented.
:D

And who can fault these people for trying to convince everyone else? If they really truly believe it, then getting the word out makes perfect sense.

[jimpeel]

Tunnels under Denver International Airport which extend throughout the U.S.; the extermination camps in southwestern Indiana (the barbed wire faces the wrong way); the HAARP project that controls the weather -- and thus the food supply; and (my favorite) the plan by the government to project a holographic image of Jesus Christ returning to Earth to explain the disappearance of all of the Christian militia and patriot citizens -- "they've been taken up!"

[Wildalaska]

O yeah HAARP, very cool, I had some old Bush Rat Alaskan explain to me in a bar once that HAARP "rays" would kill all patriots unless they protected themselves with some type of salve (which Im sure included the mass quatities of weed this dude smoked)...also was told once that the Aurora Borealis was caused by HAARP

WildholybloodholygrailAlaska

[jimpeel]

Think he was living that old joke that the punchline is "Now! Where's that Alaskan woman I'm supposed to kill?"

Didn't try to sell you any whisky and salve, did he?:D

[Wildalaska]

:evil: :evil: :evil: :D

[Mike Irwin]

Define weird.

Weird to you, weird to them, or weird to a third person?

I'm sure that all of us have beliefs and thoughts that others deem to be weird.

[Wildalaska]

I'm sure that all of us have beliefs and thoughts that others deem to be weird.

Good point...could we then define wierd as mental deviation from common everyday rationality?

WildposthocergopropterhocAlaska

[Mike Irwin]

Define rationality, especially a common every day kind...

If you're living in Baghdad in an anti-American community that believes strapping dynamite to your body and walking up to an American soldier before detonating is rational, are you ration if you believe that's a good thing, or a bad thing?

[Wildalaska]

If you're living in Baghdad in an anti-American community that believes strapping dynamite to your body and walking up to an American soldier before detonating is rational, are you ration if you believe that's a good thing, or a bad thing?

OK but now you are adding cultural relativism in the mix....if we assume, as we should, that US culture and rational political/socila ideas are the norm, we have a starting point to define wierd...

WilddownwithcultrualrelativismAlaska

[telomerase]

I'm far more alarmed by weird people that believe what I think are "normal" things. I take it as a sign that I've made a terrible error.

[Don Galt]

But at the end of the day, someone really did shoot JFK from the grassy knoll... all the objective evidence points to that. And so, when the government insists Oswald was a lone gunman, we know that not only was there a conspiracy, but that the government is covering it up.

It doesnt' seem to be a very big stretch to then figure the people who were behind the JFK assasination and cover up, are at least still having influence with our government.

At the end of the day, there really was a conspiracy to kill JFK.

I find less problem with people who speculate about what that conspiracy entails, than with people who reject out of hand that there ever was a conspiracy.

[rock jock]

Don, if by "objective" you mean all the sources of information that agree with your preconceived notions of a conspiracy. then I guess you would be right, sadly.

[Bainx]

The notion of a conspiracy is a very usefull thing. For anything I don't understand or want to explain away, I merely label it as a "conspiracy" and all is well.
;)

[Elmer Snerd]

This explains it all:
http://www.plif.com/archive/wc055.gif

[Don Galt]

No, I mean the objective facts, rock jock.

If you look at just the physical evidence, the zapruder film, and where bullets impacted, the JFK conspiracy is not a theory, but a fact.

You can deny the facts, but that's fine-- that's your own personal conspiracy theory.

[w4rma]

The JFK conspiracy theories are still theories, IMHO. The are facts that can be used to help support various theories (evidence), but they are still theories.

My personal opinion on that is that I don't have enough information to make an informed judgement. The way it looks, I'll probably never have enough information.

[Mike Irwin]

"relativism"


Congratulations, you said the magic word, and will win absolutely nothing...


Everything is relative based on a vast number of varying parameters.

Thus, there's no true way to define weird, or even rational. You can only define it as a subset of what the core group believes.

[goon]

I know a guy like that too.
The thing is that the actions of our government is what leads people to think like that.
I don't like to be paranoid, but the truth is that there are times that some of the things I read about the powers and capabilities of the government scare the hell out of me.
Maybe a little paranoia is a good thing.
At the very least, if a guy is a little fruity but not hurting anyone, is it really anyone's business?

[greyhound]

"relativism"

yep, that's the big word. Can be used to justify anything. To a leftist, it basically means "Western values = wrong", to a non-leftist it means lets examine "Western vs. 3rd world values" means Western is better.

All depends on moral relativism and such....

[MeekandMild]

Presuming you really really want a technical answer from a professional member of the thought police? (just kidding)

Here it is.

The human mind is like a computer, processing various sensory stimuli in a parallel distributed manner. Procesing of ideas takes place at the phenominally slow bandwidth of 7 bits +/- 1 bit at a refresh rate of maybe 300 msec, roughly 3 cycles per second. (Your only redemption here, making you faster than an ole 8088 processor is the fact that you have about 3 trillion neurons each with about 74,000 synapses, but there is a HUGE bottleneck at the threshold of conciousness.)

People do pretty well with direct sensory stimulation. On most days you can tell the difference between a deer in mufti and a hunter in orange. All this is processed before it gets to the centers of awareness.

Language, however is EXTERNALLY preprocessed and precoded.

So.

Garbage in---garbage out.


:what:

[BHPshooter]

I don't know anyone like that personally, but I tend to view it like this: Would there be conspiracy theorists if there wasn't such thing as conspiracy? In other words, conspiracies have happened, and still could happen. I have no examples to contribute, but anything's possible I guess.

</ramble>
Wes

[mrapathy2000]

Coast To Coast Am (http://www.coasttocoastam.com)

its good to be out their with open mind just take things with grain of salt. it can be good form of entertainment,information or fantasy.

alot of weird stuff in the world. just look at the facts. live on the 3rd rock from the sun filled with few billion people divided by hundreds of languages,culture and beliefs.

[Sarge]

in varying degrees; some show it all the time, and some hold it in until they explode. There are also a lot of folks who just like to throw something absurd out there, to get a reaction. Most are not malicious, and never harm anybody. I like to think of them as job security.

Ever notice how some of the most even-tempered, contented people you'll ever meet are country folk (farmers, cattlemen, dairymen, etc.) who haven't spent half their lives getting their brains scrambled by liberal academia or the press? They watch the news and see all the mayhem, sickness and absurdity- and then they'll go plop down on the couch and rub Mama's feet just because it makes her feel good. Most will ask a blessing at meals, and most know where to turn when the world just don't make sense any more. They turn to the God that created it.

But there I go being a 'religious nut' again.

It is my belief that a functional moral compass, and the ability to believe in absolutes of right and wrong, are major components to your overall sanity and happiness. Personally, I think Elvis was shooting at aliens from that grassy knoll... but what do I know?

[Preacherman]

As for relativism, G. K. Chesterton put it rather well:The word “good” has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man...See - it's even firearms-related! :D

[Elmer Snerd]

I hope that these links provide some insight:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0002F4E6-8CF7-1D49-90FB809EC5880000
http://www.ulrc.com.au/html/Frequently_Asked_Questions.asp?FAQRefNum=FAQ0004
http://www.2think.org/wpbwt.shtml
http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/conspiracy_proandcon.htm
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id1767/pg1/index.html
From the above article:
There's certainly much to be paranoid about in an age of hyper-accelerated technology, culture, globalization, change and marketing. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), most conspiracy theories are like cold fusion--they look like they work and produce a Eureka moment but the reality usually does not match appearances. Ray Brown, a Bowling Green University professor, writes, "There is just enough sanity in some of these conspiracy theories to make them almost believable. By and large, however, they are creations of very rich imaginations because we simply can't accept life as it is." Usually, the essence of conspiracy theory is that an event happened; there are connections between the person involved in the event and other people with their own agendas; and it could be theorized that all of these people were linked to make the event happen for a specific reason. To use the World Trade Center attack as an example:

1. The World Trade Center is attacked.
2. George W. Bush is an oilman and many of his friends are oilmen.
3. One of Osama Bin Laden's brothers was a partner of Bush's.
4. Afghanistan, where Bin Laden is hiding, is where oil companies want to run a pipeline but the Taliban government is unfriendly.
5. The intelligence community knew that something "spectacular" was going to happen but did not prevent it.
6. Therefore, Bush allowed Bin Laden to attack the World Trade Center in order to have an excuse to invade Afghanistan and set up a friendly government, which would allow the pipeline to run through and make oil companies money.Events, connections, agendas form the basis for conspiracy theories. If we take the above example and flesh it out with more direct and indirect connections between various players, then it could sound plausible. I personally don't believe it, but it could sound plausible to many rational people. And this gets to the root of the problem with many conspiracy theories, the attempt to indict people and organizations based purely on circumstantial evidence. We could make the process of logic even simpler in this example:

1. Joe was murdered.
2. Bob hated Joe.
3. If Joe would die, Bob could try to date Joe's girlfriend.
4. Bob murdered Joe.

Another problem, with the massive, elaborate theories, is a lack of common sense. One has to ask how the world's greatest secret societies have volumes of material written about their inner plans and workings. Or how many years the U.N. army is going to hide in Mexico before they are finally allowed to invade the U.S. Or why 13 rich white men who already rule the world behind the scenes would want to stage a military takeover of our country. The larger the conspiracy is, generally, the more holes and greater contrariness to common sense. A final problem with conspiracy theories is that they are too often used to justify racial and religious prejudice and hatred. When you hear somebody say that Jews have a plot to take over the world, the menace and hatred makes you wish conspiracy theories didn't exist at all.

[bad_dad_brad]

Good book by Carl Sagan about this particular human behaviour trait. It is titled "The Demon Haunted World: Science as Candle in the Dark." Also read "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time" by Michael Shermer. There are several other books as well. Ignorance, chemical imbalances, stupidity, alcohlism, etc. but mostly ignorance I think.

[Khornet]

Preacherman for being a Chesterton fan, and

W4rma for the wisest statement on this thread: "I just don't know." Because we don't, really.

[greyhound]

Just got back from the store and had a conversation with GF about this. Kinda went like: "You know, there were people in that store that own homes, have a job, raise kids, pay taxes, etc., and really, truly, and honestly believe that George W. Bush is secretly plotting to become Emperor of the world."

To be fair, a lot of their ideological dopplegangers believe that Bill and Hilary Clinton were secretly murdering associates who "knew too much" in the 1990s.:rolleyes:

[El Tejon]

Because they want to believe. It's the Peter Pan complex--longing for "adventures" and dragons to slay.

You see it at THR ALL the time. People don't want to grow up so they believe in all kinds of imaginary stuff: black helicopters, bears, magic unicorns, et al. People would rather feed their fantasies, than get to work.

(BTW, who can blame them!:D)

[Double Naught Spy]

Why do weird people believe regular things?


And since when don't regular people believe weird things?


Let's see, ghosts, superstitions, all sorts of religious beliefs, UFOs, Area 51, the Gov't is out to get us, ...

No wait, just read the posts on this board and ask why regular people believe weird things.

[Moparmike]

As for those who buy whacked out conspiracy theories about black helicopters, aliens, and shady organizations of cigarrette-smoking menYes, but what about the shady organizations of cigarrette-smoking aliens flying silent black helecopters?:eek: :p

Lots of conspiracies exist. Lots of normal people (like me) write weird things:If a tree falls on Mars in the middle of the winter of our discontent before a bird croaks with no one around to determine the exact air speed velocity of an unladen swallow, can a duck float while a witch is on top of it after a large meal containing those that would mock her on a saturday after they have mowed their lawn in the rain after a lunar eclipse seen from the Oort Cloud in a dodecahedrally-shaped ship piloted by a drunken Turk?Conspiracy? No. Weird. Yes. Am I commitable? Possibly.:scrutiny: :uhoh: :neener:

[Black Snowman]

The only problem with most of the conspericy theorys are that they see the forest but don't recognize the trees. There isn't one big conspericy controlling everything. There are millions of small conspericys. Everything from the local office pool to the highest levels of government conspericies abound to try and achieve every goal imagineable under the sun.

Yes, it's normal for people to believe wierd things. I've never met anyone as abnormal or as level-headed as myself ;)

[Double Naught Spy]

Ah!!! But you have to show there are trees before you can be blocked by the forest.

[RocketMan]

Geek's explanation was one of the clearest and well thought out I have seen in a long time.
Kudos to you, sir. Good job.

They got to you, didn't they? Now, where'd I put my tinfoil hat? :neener:

[Don Galt]

Lets not forget that half the worlds population believes in some sort of mysticism, whether its christian, islamic or the religious buddhists, or the hindus.

They believe weird things because they are taught them from a very young age.

Its no wonder they end up believing other stuff as well.

Hell, they grow up with the idea that these unrpoven, mystical things are absolute hard core truth. (And so I'll probably get flamed for this).

But if you want a conspiracy theory bought by the average american, the christian one has got to be the most popular.

[El Tejon]

I knew it! Don's in league with The Snake, Eve, and the Cigarette Man!

:D

[Dr.Rob]

I listen to Coast to Coast.. I don't buy most of it.

It's generally entertaining.

Favorites of Late:

Bush is/was a Nazi because his anscestors did business with Krupp steel and tried to keep us out of WW2 (I think that was the carnegies wasn't it?)

---Problem. I know a lot of people whose grandfathers were Nazis or racists. Also know a lot who were patriots, doesn't mean you are. By this rational my Grandfather was a flight engineer.. so am I.

Bush is/was the leader of Al-Qeda, purely an invention of the Skull and Bones society that secretly runs the world.. Al-Qeda was created to keep us 'at war'. Ala 1984.

----Problem: OK if they are alread "in control" why do they need more control? Frat boys rule the world? Frat boys rule the world? Frat boys rule the world? Al-Qeda was around under Clinton too.. is he part of it?

True conspiracies:

The Patriot Act. Probably a useful tool in the war on terror, but worse than the war on drugs as far as civil liberties go. Some dark miniomn of Set dreamed this one up.

Kennedy assasination: All I know for sure is the Russians didn't do it. I'd likely blame the Mob, or the mob acting as an instrument of 'All the king's men" who knew Kennedy's liason w/an East German spy might come to light. (and I'm NOT making that up).

American idol. There is NO good reason 27 minutes of a CNN broadcast should be allocated to 'who won, Clay or Ruben?" Who the heck gives a rat's hindquarters? didn't something happen in Benin, or French Giuyana that was more newsworthy? By the way, expect to see the Antichrist karaoke his way through "Beleive in Love" by Cher.

Greeting Card Companies and deforestation. Even the French figured this out. Greeting Card companies "invent" holidays so you'll buy cards. This was true of Valentines day, now its true of Sectretaries day. Save a tree, send an E-card.

Soccer Moms are our enemies! Ok most are just trying to make ends meet and are secretly happy that for once its nice to return to the relative sanity of a only one parent forced in to zaibatsu like working conditions and spending all the scheckels at the fatory store. BTW the "fatory store" is now Ikea, the Sharper Image, and SUV manufacturers. One of these days little Barbie better than you is going to shuck her humanoid face and start live swallowing rats because she's tired of the charade.

:rolleyes: :uhoh: :D :scrutiny:

[Don Galt]

Here's a weird thing:

Osama Bin Laden's father got his money, in part, by doing business with American oil companies.

Namely Zapata-- the company Bush Senior ran / runs.

I just heard this, don't know if its true or not, but its a very interesting connection, if true!

Don

(Afraid that by merely posting this, someone will now say I said it was true.)

[twoblink]

Now if these things happened to you, then it wouldn't be theory anymore would it?

I use to not believe in most of that stuff; until my life got utterly screwed up by the gov'ment.. Then it seemed, anything was possible..

So now, I'm no longer a conspiracy theorist, I'm a CONSPIRACY FACTUALIST..

[Langenator]

Osama Bin Laden's father got his money, in part, by doing business with American oil companies.

Bin Laden Sr has also disowned Osama. Unfortunately, OBL got a chunk of the family dough before this happened.

[huntsman]

quote:
"Do any of you guys know someone like this? Why do apparently normal people believe such outlandish ideas"

I just heard on the O'reily factor, 66% of those who responded to a poll think JFK was killed by more than 1 gunman (oswald) :confused:

I'm dissapointed in my fellow "kooks" , we could have gotten better numbers if we realy tried
:D