So recently, governments have been using 'conspiracy theorist' to attack basically anyone who does not accept government narratives. If you don't believe in their good will and morality, you are a conspiracy theorist. In fact, a local paper once claimed that people who believe that politicians are corrupt, or that the media is pushing an agenda, are conspiracy theorists. So much for that.
It doesn't matter if it actually involves a conspiracy or not. For example, if you believe that 9/11 was an inside job, then you are a conspiracy theorist. However, if you believe that the Nord Stream sabotage was NOT an inside job, you are a conspiracy theorist. The only thing those two have in common is that you are not a conspiracy theorist if you say the US government did nothing wrong.
Regardless of the double standards, the problem is the conspiracies do happen. Now, what actually is a conspiracy theorist? Because there are a good number of totally whacked people out there, who believe in wildly implausible conspiracies.
My best way to explain it is as follows: people who exclusively or preferentially explain things with 'conspiracies' are conspiracy theorists.
Someone who is six months ahead of the curve.
Six months is oldschool. We're at about three weeks now.
If anyone ever calls me a conspiracy theorist to my face, I have a very simple retort.
"That means jack shit. Call me a liar, if you dare."
someone who knows something before they're allowed to.
Someone capable of pattern recognition and the basic ability to project said patterns into the future and draw inferences.
human walking spoiler alert
Someone who notices.
Someone who believes their lying eyes.
I would suggest not worrying about keeping a pejorative for the "totally whacked people out there, who believe in wildly implausible conspiracies". They're not going to let us "take back" the insult to only apply it to the real quacks. You can use it in a literal sense (someone who describes a theoretical conspiracy is a conspiracy theorist) or you keep it vague and the voices in charge will decide what exactly which heretics it applies to. I mean they'll do that anyway but there's no middle ground we'll all agree on.
Conspiracy by definition is simply that people wish to conspire to do something in secret, usually illegal. It's quite obvious that modern society has many people conspiring to do many things. Even in GamerGate there was the GameJournoPros which was a secret group deciding on what narratives to push, that goes up to every level of society of course.
They say that the term "conspiracy theory" was used to deflect from people suspicious about the Kennedy assassination. And has since been used to cast doubt on people being skeptical of anything going against the mainstream narrative.
And in the modern globalized world with instance communication and fast travel for the well off, conspiracies and shared ideologies - like everything else - are naturally becoming unified and global. The idea of a world conspiracy of bankers, wealthy families, and other groups trying to push us towards dystopia may have sounded far-fetched in the 1800s but it shouldn't today.
OK, but what would one call people who believe really weird and wildly implausible (but not refutable) things like "aliens control the world" or "Biden does not really exist"?
Either they are legitimately schizophrenic, or they are grasping at straws when they know they aren't being told the truth and just can't tell what's actually real or not. I also would not dismiss disinfo campaigns even if that's not always the case.
LOL! THAT MEME FUNNY.
Unfortunately, I don't think humanity is smart enough that governments have to pay off people to spout retarded crap. They do so on their own. They sure do make good use of it though.
It's less that people are "paid" and more that they are directed. People will "buy in" to things that give them what they want, status, attention, power, etc. I would suggest looking into the MKUltra programs, and do not assume that projects like that stopped at any point. They just stopped admitting they exist.
Who needs MKUltra when you have the media?
MKUltra was the government learning how to use trauma and stress to control people. The media has always been subverted, but they put more and more operatives directly in positions of power in the media. This was finalized under Obama with a push towards internet companies. This is why in 2012 or so you see a massive shift in direction.
schizos
You know what I hate about all this? I can't enjoy an absurd theory anymore. I loved listening to it on late night driving sessions. Aliens make love to bigfoot? Oh yeah!
Now all the theories are so close to reality it's not any fun. Russia has missiles in Belarus because we do, but haven't been told yet? Sounds very plausible. Conspiracy theory? Technically yes, but likely true.
We are in an age where stupidity is right. Then the radio guys stopped talking about lizard men and alien encounters because they don't want to find out or something. Then the government stops them from reporting what had to be fake. So, is bigfoot with Elvis' baby or what!?
Eh I think you dodged it by forcing us to define conspiracies instead.
Conspiracy theorist is less a mode of thinking and more of a label attached to people who believe certain common explanations. It's more of a (fan) club. Everybody believes in conspiracies. If you believe in the ones that use to be on Coast to Coast then you're a conspiracy theorist.
Not necessarily conspiracies, as some conspiracies are real. So the mere fact that someone asserts or hypothesizes a 'conspiracy' is not proof positive that he is crazy. But there are crazy people out there, and many of them think a lot of things are going on that ain't.
Now, I'm a bit more familiar with conspiracy thinking, because the favored explanation for everything in my country of origin is a conspiracy. It's sort of a reverse Ockham's razor.
I don't think I'm trying to say that believing in conspiracies makes people crazy.
Any meaning of these terms is now strictly adherent to what the elite decide it means.
Not that the phrase hasn't always been used to try and redirect, distract, and deflect legitimate accusations and questions.
OK, how about this?
Western countries intentionally attempting the goal of depopulation by killing their own subjects.
Obviously, not because of any 'humanitarian' motive, for they have none. But there is no way they are going to kill off their own tax base, and the people they can order around. That is why I never believed claims that the vaccine would kill 90% or even 2% of the population.
Or: the world is ruled by reptilians.
Or the flat earth.
The problem is that you're thinking of "conspiracy theories" the way it has been used in the past few years, when I'm talking about truly dumb crap - not the stuff they label like that.
Simply profit and self-interest.
Why do they promote immigration? So they can pay lower wages.
Yes, the Greeks already knew that the world was not flat...
Alright, but what of it?
Yes, I'm not suggesting believing everything that the regime spouts. Just wondering if a reasonable definition of CT is not someone who explains everything using conspiracies.
It isn't. There would be fewer of "us" (I assume you mean white people, which would not include me), so fewer to milk through taxes, and fewer to order around.
Get real.
When you can't support that number of animals. We're not even close to that.
Hollow Earth is actually an interesting one. Almost certainly not a probable thing, but it's at least a fun one.
Reptilians? No. But it wouldn't surprise me if there were some degree of alien influence over governments. IE, certain conditional requirements in order for them to be open to trading technology.
Covid-wise, there's an endless supply of semi-plausible gains that could be had by releasing a "mildly" deadly virus with other side effects, along with a vaccine that provided other controlled negative effects. Even more-so if those effects could be delayed. Just think of the Aschen from Stargate SG1.
I think the real conspiracy about flat earth is that anyone actually believes in that anymore. I think it's a deliberate hoax to make certain sorts look crazier and easier to dismiss.
All Hollywood actresses are actually trans. After MeToo, they decided to never hire another woman.
Give it your best shot.
The only crazy thing about that is that they actually have female voices.
You can (almost) always tell a troon by the voice. MTT have a male voice. FTT have a really weird, pedo-like voice (goes with their facial hair).
AI-voice generation and voice cloning is a thing. How many Hollywood actresses have you met in person, hmmmm?
Not serious of course, just having fun with it.
Too bad. Just for a moment I hoped that they were even faker than they look.
This doesn't help matters.
https://imgur.com/fgjhoKM
Well they're certainly extra fake on the inside, you can be sure of that.
They could just dub the voice on later.
A miserable pile of secrets
What's the best lazy opposite? Normie or npc (slang, liable to either be too niche or too diluted), pawn or conformist (edgy teenage philosophy, and too many contexts); blue-pilled (poisoned by the pickup-artist debate); peasantry or pleb (a bit too general), pedestrian (buy your car and be cool unlike those foot-commuters , and conform to communities engineered to be strip-mined by The Man)? Guess I'm relegated to calling folk a bunch of submissives.
As a denizen of the shitposting internet of the 2000s, I've had to explain to a large number of people that "theory", such as "theory of evolution", means "established current knowledge", not "wild mass guessing".
Expanding on this, theorist would be one who works with theories, with established and not-yet-unproven truths.
A conspiracy is two or more people communication with an aim to perform some action that is, traditionally, viewed as immoral or unlawful.
Therefore, a conspiracy theorist is a person who specializes in the established current knowledge and not-yet-unproven fact-state that people exist who are working together to perform some action that is immoral or unlawful.
In example, someone who says the Ford Pinto was purposefully designed to save money despite the execs knowing it would kill thousands of people? Conspiracy theorist. Someone saying ENRON did not report their financial situation with material accuracy? Conspiracy theorist.
Conspiracy theorist is a term coined by the CIA to discredit people who believed in Area 51 and JFK murder conspiracies. The correct term is conspirologist.
Crap, they're on to me.