posted
Considering the success of some conspiracy theories, it is clear that they connect with a 'market'. Why? What aspects of a conspiracy theory make it attractive?
What are your thoughts on plundering the research and hard work of the lunatic fringe?
Heard any good ones lately?
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 06, 2006).]
posted
Ever read FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM by Umberto Eco, Hoptoad? It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to capitalize on conspiracy theories. (It's also quite a good read.)
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
Conspiracy theories usually fall apart upon closer examination. I haven't seen anything in my life that struck me as credible, merely plausible...
Conspiracy theorists, however, make interesting characters.
posted
Well now, let's be a little fair. Conspiracy theories are merely theories people dream up about a group of people working behind the scenes or in the shadows to achieve a goal -- usually in their favor and against the favor of the theorist. To dismiss every theory and every theorist as a lunatic is going a bit far, I think. As unlikely as some of the theories are, I find it at least as unlikely that no powerful group of people have ever conspired in their own favor against the greater good.
I think it is that last part that makes conspiracy theories interesting to me. Call me paranoid, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you. I like conspiracy theories because some of them are just plausible enough to feed on my fear of something real.
posted
There's a difference, I think, between a conspiracy and a Conspiracy Theory. In a conspiracy, you might well find that, say, certain government officials have worked together to throw lucrative war contracts to their friends; that level of conspiracy is fairly common.
But in a Conspiracy Theory, you find that the government officials are shape-shifting blood-drinking reptilian aliens from the Plieades, and that the entire human race has been bred by these aliens to be their slaves, and that the entire course of human history has been architected by aliens disguised as Freemasons. The aliens have regular Satanic and hedonistic retreats where they further their plans for world domination and drink the blood of virgins (most notably at Bohemian Grove and the Bilderburg Group annual meeting). When they are not meeting in person, the aliens communicate their affiliation through symbols and numbers. For example, Masonic lodges are often built in a square shape, so the aliens incorporate squares into their corporate logos; this sends a signal to other aliens. Of course the Scottish Rite freemasons (the ones who secretly rule the world) are simply the Templars in another guise.
I spent a couple of years looking into this stuff; if there's anything in particular that interests you, I can probably give you some sources for more.
posted
I don't believe in Reptilian Humanoids but my persona does. She hides this very blunt sword in my backpack when I'm not looking and unsheathes it at the most inappropriate moments. I do believe the reason this sword is blunt is because she misses so often and hits metro wagons and city utilities instead of Reptilian Humanoids, so that now it works more like a heavy bat than like a sharp edged sword. I wake up in the mornings with bloody clothes and guts in my hair. There must be some way to stop her.
Kath, is it OK for me to post a link to my blog, featuring my Reptile Hunting persona? Thanks
Most conspiracy theories that actually "hit the mark" to a significant degree result in either the exposure or retreat of the conspiracy in question. In either case, a widespread conspiracy theory is a pretty good "innoculation" against the possibility of an actual conspiracy along those lines.
For instance, actual alien abductions have been vanishingly rare since the sixties, and the U.S. government stopped active cooperation with non-benevolent extraterrestrials almost entirely by the 70's. Some of that has to do with the Carter administration, but the aliens turned to other methods partly because abductee's knew too much about what to expect, so they made poor/uncooperative experimental subjects. Besides, they can now find out everything they want to know about humanity from the Internet.
The flip side of the coin is conspiracies that end up being "busted" by the spread of a conspiracy theory. Once a conspiracy is exposed, the conspiracy theory detailing it enters the historical record and loses it's status as a conspiracy theory. Of course, many of these "exposures" are limited, the main architects usually have a plan for escaping detection and continuing their work under a different guise after yielding up a convenient scapegoat.
The final fallback position, should retreat prove untenable, seize control of public information sources and shout the other side down. Quick, who here believes that the universe is only 13-15 billion years old? Who believes that life originated on Earth? You know why they teach you that in school? To make it seem less likely that advanced aliens could be running around. Remember, the essence of a good conspiracy is dupes, people who spend their entire lives advancing your agenda without even knowing about it.
posted
When you've worn yourself out refuting the Kennedy conspiracy theories, refuting the 9 / 11 conspiracy theories comes easier...
I think conspiracy theorists are of two or three types. Type One are those who just can't accept the truth, that there has to be more than meets the eye. The enormity of the event is just too much.
Types Two / Three are similar. Type Two are, say, the kind that just doesn't want to believe one part of what happened (say, Islamic terrorism in 9 / 11), usually from the trouble it causes fitting it in their world view. Type Three are the kind that badly wants to believe something else about the event in question (say, involvement of the CIA / Freemasons in 9 / 11).
These types all have elements in common, particularly paranoia and the almost-frightening manner in which they lose all touch with reality.
Well, taking it for granted that we're talking about conspiracy theories that we believe to be baseless (rather than unimportant), I suppose that it makes sense to talk about "those who just can't accept the truth". But there are two sides to every conflict of perception. Take the Cydonia Face on Mars. Honestly, I find it impossible to understand how anyone can look at this thing and really believe it doesn't look artificial. Sure, it also has features that could be interpreted as eyes, nose, mouth, and chin (or beard, depending on who you ask). But that's not really the point. I would tend to doubt that it is supposed to be a human face just because it's on another planet.
Now, on the one hand you have a lot of people that make up elaborate stories about how everyone who thinks it looks artifical are either delusional or out to make a quick buck. On the other you have people who think that the people who refuse to admit that it looks artificial are trying to hide something. I'll admit that I find more evidence that the NASA people have hidden things that seemed to support the existence of extraterrestrials, including frequent admissions by those working for NASA that they had hidden something because they didn't know how to explain it without resorting to aliens. Ultimately, since I acknowledge that part of the unofficial mission of NASA is to reduce public fear concerning possible threats from space, I don't think that it's so much improper as pathetic that they do this kind of thing.
The point is that, in this case, it doesn't really matter whether aliens built the thing or not. It's over a million years old, there probably isn't anything to loot, and even if there were, nobody on this planet currently has the ability to loot it. Given that extraterrestrial life is a mathmatical certainty, it isn't even important in the abstract sense of "proof that extraterrestrial life does exist". The people who blandly deny that it looks artificial mainly do so because it's their job, not because their world would collapse if they were forced to confront "the truth". In this case, "the truth" is simply that it doesn't look natural. But you'll put your job at risk if you say so. And that's as far as it goes.
posted
I believe mad cow pathogen in America is similar. What good would it do for people to know the truth? Less debateable is the idea that most chocolate is tainted by the slave trade.
What I find really odd is that the powers that be combat these information threats with research findings that beef and chocolate are actually good for you somehow. Okay, not odd so much as awed (by the sheer diabolical genius of it).
[This message has been edited by franc li (edited December 08, 2006).]
posted
On the Face on Mars...I haven't heard much about that one since one of the later probes took a photo of the region at higher resolution at a different time of day, and produced an image that looked like some dull worn-down mesa, that didn't look like a face at all.
But it's a classic conspiracy theory---obviously NASA and the government must be concealing evidence of extraterrestrial activity, since they've both concealed so much already. And with only the evidence of a single blurry photo to boot, marked with a lot of speculation without evidence one way or the other.
Fortunately it's one conspiracy theory that does little harm---unlike the Holocaust hoax theories or the Kennedy assassination theories or the 9 / 11 attack theories, which have great potential for disruption in politics and diplomatic relations.
posted
I think the market for conspiracy theories has a connection to their plausability and what the masses believe . The Da Vinci Code for example found an audience among athiests and the open minded , and those who have no love for the catholic church. These days, skepticism about religion is in , so it had a market . But if you in this day and age, write a novel about the everyone in the US senate bieng aliens , you won't get as attention as you would at the height of the roswell incident .
Posts: 51 | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
conspiracy theories, like religions, make the masses more comfortable in their lack of control over their lives, a lack of clear purpose or meaning. it's nice to think there's someone controlling everything, even when it's some shadow government or evil pseudocorporate overlords, or even aliens
and when it gets uncomfortable, the fight against them (even if only in the form of ranting about them crazily to anyone who will listen) still gives you purpose, and meaning, which goes right back to that control issue.
posted
Actually, the high resolution image, which I linked in my post, looks quite a bit more artificial than the original low-resolution image. However, when NASA first released the new images, they digitally altered[i] the released image to make it look less like a face. After this was discovered, they [i]did it again for the next publically released image.
The available evidence now stands at five images, three unaltered images which all show a certain resemblance to a face, and two digitally altered images which were both released to the mass media, neither of which looks anything like the unaltered images. NASA has since done it's best to forget the alteration debacles ever happened, so you'll have difficulty finding them unless you kept old issues of magazines around.
Anyway, I thought of another conspiracy...what was it? Oh yeah, the PS3 release. I believe that Sony deliberately limited the number of available PS3's for the U.S. market with the intention of causing public disorder, crimes, and ebay sales for thousands of dollars. I also believe that they have worked behind the scenes to make sure that any stories involving these troubles were over-reported. They did this for the simple reason of making the $699 price point of their console look more reasonable. In other words, instead of comparing the price to the X-box 360, over which nobody seems to be dying, customers are conditioned to compare the sticker price to being robbed on ebay, beaten and robbed on the street, or possibly killed (in real life, and not a game, which fits in perfectly with their motto "live in your world, play in ours"). How's that for a conspiracy theory?
posted
Even if they did do it on purpose , it was a bad business decision, the nintendo Wii has sold over 1 million units in the same time as the PS3, which is trailing at around 300 000. While they make a loss on each console , and profit off of game sales , Nintendo still has the edge as it has 3 times as many people to buy their games as Sony.
The price of the PS3 and its lack of availability are linked to the same cause , Sony wanted to advertise their Blue Ray disks and Cell processors through the PS3. Both of which are young technology that is hard to produce and expensive. A blue ray drive for a PC costs something insane like 800 USD (price of a whole pc) , and a system with a cell chip over 7000 US . http://www.nulime.com/Plextor-Blue-ray-Disc-Drive-DVD-Recorders-CD-CD-RW-DVD-p164987-c2336.html
Nice theory, but it won't get past anyone who knows the topic . IF you want to write a book about Sony trying to take over the world.. the mass populace might believe it.
posted
Last laugh and all that. Sony is poised to make the PS3 look like the console of the future, while the Wii ends up looking like yesterday's toy. Nintendo is currently trying to make play off the fact that some people get so excited while using their revolutionary controller that they accidentally throw it through their HDTV...but it just doesn't have traction like shooting and looting.
Sony is selling units as fast as they can produce them, and will be doing so for the next year or so. And have you seen their latest commercials? I thought the "live in your world, play in ours" CMs were edgy, but the current crop of PS3 commercials definitely play on the ph34r/l337 imagery. Particularly the one with the robot baby.
I'm going to say that shipping the blue ray drive in there was a bad decision, but the rest of it is evil genius. Right now, the Wii and 360 are widely seen as competitors with the PS2 rather than being in the same league as the PS3.
posted
I wanted to come up with a grand conspiracy-theory novel idea, but when I did, I found that I'd recreated X-Files.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Back to your question, I think conspiracy theories have the same allure as any fiction, including religion, which is that they seem to apply moral codes and shapely outcomes to real life. This might explain why conspiracies tend to relate to the most alarming and/or terrifing real life occasions, which is to say those wholly incomprehensible otherwise. What I can't understand is why motive has been taken out of investigative equations when considering questions of real life conspiracy. Sometimes the walking and quacking thing really might be a duck.
Posts: 0 | Registered: Feb 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, hey, my Beijing controls everything conspiracy. I don't know if I've mentioned this very much before, but Beijing is obviously manipulating North Korea. I mean, everyone knows that, so it hardly needs to be said. What a lot of people seem to forget is that Beijing is also manipulating Iran, Syria, and France. I do believe that I've mentioned that Beijing occasionally tells the French how to vote in the U.N., and France never argues with them. They also are directly responsible for much of the nuclear technology being developed in the Middle East, and indirectly responsible for everything ostensibly done by French and German technicians.
Further, Beijing covertly backs a number of PAC's here in the U.S. devoted to international policy and immigration issues, as well as working to apply Affirmative Action to Asians, particularly overseas scholars. Yeah, I know, sounds truly crazed, but they focus on the fact that Asians tend to be underrepresented in management positions compared to technical jobs and their overall qualifications. This also serves to bolster their recruitment efforts for the largest industrial espionage program ever...it's notable that the Russian intelligence services were never able to even slow down the Chinese when it came to stealing tech. Beijing backed PAC's have swayed a large number of close elections, and they're plausibly non-partisan enough to work as a swing-vote, so in most close races both candidates adopt the seemingly reasonable positions outlined by Beijing.
They don't exactly own us the way they own France and the scientific establishment (the latter bought with a mere 395 billion stem-cell program and things like that), but they do have a hell of a lot more influence than any "Triumvirate" or whatever. Also, I think that Sony is secretly working for Beijing, but I don't have a shred of evidence for that other than that it sounds scary
I'm fascinated as much by conspiracy theorists as personalities (and potential characters) as I am by the theories. One just crossed the news media in the last few days: the father of Dodi Fayad [spelling, if anyone knows for sure?], who died in the car crash with Princess Diana.
You all know the broad outlines of the conspiracy theory: Diana (and Dodi) were killed by secret British agents because Diana was either about to marry Dodi or about to bear his child, or maybe both. It's pretty mixed up---and after several inquests has all been repeatedly and inevitably dismissed.
But Dodi's father [whose name also escapes me at the moment] keeps coming back for another try at it. He's well-heeled---owns Harrods in London, and other things, I gather---and can afford to keep trying to get some official verdict in favor of his conspiracy theory.
The conspiracy theory here is pretty much the usual thing. I'm interested in the personality thus expressed. I see two possibilities. First, that Dodie's father can't bring himself to accept the standard explanation. Or, that he has some ulterior motive for attempting to get his theory across to mass acceptance. (I'd like to credit the first explanation as true, but can't say one way or another---I don't know the guy and probably never will.)
posted
Eh, see I think placing a definite face on the malevolent tides that generate conspiracy is a mistake, kind of LIKE (this is a specimen of what I think is a mistake, and not what I think) saying the Pope is the antichrist. Hubris, Greed, Fear... your basic Pandora's Crackerjack with the hidden prize being Hope. Though I guess I have to wonder if my open-mindedness will cause me to miss the real antichrist when he shows up.
Posts: 366 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
There's that guy who accused the Russians of poisoning him with polonium-210. Now there's a far out conspiracy theory Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not that I've heard. Although...no. I mean, it makes more sense for them to do it than for the Russians to do it, but the Russians are always doing things that don't make any sense.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
