I read the news today oh boy! Page 2,201

An interesting conspiracy theory in itself. No evidence for it, of course.
Doesn't make a lot of sense. The same 'intelligence apparatus' made a hasty announcement that Clinton was likely to be indicted just before the election. They then withdrew this claim shortly before the vote. If they were backing Clinton they had a funny way of showing it - the claim may well have cost her a very close election!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37805938

Even assuming the intelligence community was supporting Clinton (which it clearly wasn't), why on Earth would the Clinton team have gone to all that trouble if they had been convinced they were going to win anyway?

Quote: DaButt @ 25th August 2020, 7:44 PM

They'll fit in well with the 200+ members of Congress who believed in the conspiracy theory that a fabricated dossier "proved" that Donald Trump was guilty of collusion with Russia.

View original

The difference being that "Russia", if wholly untrue (which I doubt - there's always something) - is an attempt to make political gain - much like 'Birther' conspiracies from the other side.
All part of the shit-show that is politics.
QAnon is a different kettle of fish - with no equivalent on the Democrat side (though some on the religious right might cite a belief in evolution as a conspiracy theory!).
These are seriously unhinged people who either believe it (mental) or are using it to scare people (evil).
And Trump refusing to disavow them - happy to ride on their coat-tails, along with many other egregious group - is complicit.

Why would a ring of paedophiles go for a 74 old bloke in America who's children are all grown up ? They're rubbish at being paedophiles. Surely QAnon should be delivering hundreds of paedophiles into the hands of the law, but they don't. They focus on the "trump haters are paedophiles" slogan, which ironically sounds like a 10 year old's argument. Trump has been often accused of having a personality disorder which is a common ailment of many paedophiles...as is child like language.... just saying.... Just a minute I've read the bit where it says "No part of their theory is based on fact." Nothing to see here, move along... Trump uses child like language, doesn't he?

The trouble is, the real danger of conspiracy nuts like Q isn't the "pizza gate" end of things which is very much David Ike country, but the fostering of a propensity to believe rubbish.
Hence the not-insignificant number of people who think Covid-19 isn't real and that masks are an evil Democrat plot.
This has caused real, proper deaths.
By even tacitly supporting QAnon, by refusing to call them out you are complicit in those deaths.

This recording was made in 1967

I've listened to a lot of it and whilst I expect most of it is horse shit - it still makes interesting listening....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kQIoJ3P9jsw

Why does it always take these people three hours to get their point across.
Don't know why they don't just come out and say "It's the Jews!" and be done with it.
Then we can all move on and consign then to the bin of history.

Conspiracy theories are for people who can't come to terms with the fact that their life is shit because it's shit.
End of. They're always looking for someone to blame.

Not all Jews - specifically the rothschild family !

Quote: Lazzard @ 26th August 2020, 5:49 PM

Why does it always take these people three hours to get their point across.

View original

Could it be because they're up their own behinds, so they love the sound of their own voices? Because they think they're fabulous, they can do no wrong so it has to be someone else's fault. Plus they think it's posh not to watch TV, so they have no idea about entertainment. That said, you're right "Shit life" has more of a ring to it.

Quote: Firkin @ 26th August 2020, 6:15 PM

so they love the sound of their own voices.

View original

This is very true.
And also, they have no filter.
No part of the brain saying "Hang on! That's bollocks"
It just all comes out, on and on and on.
No need to bore the arse of everyone in the pub - now you can bore the entire world!

Quote: Lazzard @ 26th August 2020, 6:48 PM

And also, they have no filter.
No part of the brain saying "Hang on! That's bollocks"
It just all comes out, on and on and on.
No need to bore the arse of everyone in the pub - now you can bore the entire world!

View original

And said without an apparent hint of self-irony!

Quote: Lazzard @ 26th August 2020, 5:49 PM

Why does it always take these people three hours to get their point across.
Don't know why they don't just come out and say "It's the Jews!" and be done with it.
Then we can all move on and consign then to the bin of history.

Conspiracy theories are for people who can't come to terms with the fact that their life is shit because it's shit.
End of. They're always looking for someone to blame.

View original

I have no idea what the video says since I haven't listened to it as I don't have 2 hours and 52 minutes to spare in which to do so (although I congratulate you in doing so, and forming an opinion, in just the 15 minutes after it was posted in the preceding post).

Nevertheless, with regard to so-called "conspiracy theories" in general, it's easy to dismiss as such any point of view with which you disagree because it saves one from having to put forward any real counter-evidence. However, there are numerous instances of what might have been dismissed as mere conspiracy theories at their outset actually subsequently being proven, including smoking damaging your health: governments & big business using the internet to spy on people: heading footballs leading to brain damage; the adding of poisonous substances to alcohol during prohibition; the effects of Thalidomide...

In an earlier post today on this thread you refer to possible collusion of Trump with the Russians and say that you "doubt" it is untrue - "there is always something". Surely, believing and promulgating something simply because you believe it is true but with no proof one way or another, is a classic illustration of spreading a "conspiracy theory". The only difference here is that this is one to which you wish to give credence.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 26th August 2020, 8:28 PM

And said without an apparent hint of self-irony!

I have no idea what the video says since I haven't listened to it as I don't have 2 hours and 52 minutes to spare in which to do so (although I congratulate you in doing so, and forming an opinion, in just the 15 minutes after it was posted in the preceding post).

Nevertheless, with regard to so-called "conspiracy theories" in general, it's easy to dismiss as such any point of view with which you disagree because it saves one from having to put forward any real counter-evidence. However, there are numerous instances of what might have been dismissed as mere conspiracy theories at their outset actually subsequently being proven, including smoking damaging your health: governments & big business using the internet to spy on people: heading footballs leading to brain damage; the adding of poisonous substances to alcohol during prohibition; the effects of Thalidomide...

In an earlier post today on this thread you refer to possible collusion of Trump with the Russians and say that you "doubt" it is untrue - "there is always something". Surely, believing and promulgating something simply because you believe it is true but with no proof one way or another, is a classic illustration of spreading a "conspiracy theory". The only difference here is that this is one to which you wish to give credence.

View original

You make a good and valid point.
Just because a few people spread nonsense about the moon landings and 9/11 being faked, that doesn't mean ALL conspiracy theories should be dismissed outright (as many both on the Right and Left are doing increasingly). Conspiracies DO sometimes occur. Watergate was once a conspiracy theory. So was the Iran-Contra affair. Both turned out to be true. The examples above are good too. It's just a matter of being sensible about it really. I would argue the JFK assassination still looks a bit suspicious too.
Unfortunately, you then went out of your way to avoid acknowledging Trump's tactic endorsement of the lunatic theories we were discussing is absurd and dangerous. You also sidestepped acknowledging that the rumours about Trump and Russia are frighteningly plausible, prompting our resident Trump cheerleader into repeating a more outlandish conspiracy theory himself.
But a good point initially.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 26th August 2020, 8:28 PM

I have no idea what the video says since I haven't listened to it as I don't have 2 hours and 52 minutes to spare in which to do so (although I congratulate you in doing so, and forming an opinion, in just the 15 minutes after it was posted in the preceding post).

View original

I watched about 7 minutes. Enough time to hear the usual anti-semitic tropes beloved of Illuminati-botherers.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 26th August 2020, 8:28 PM

smoking damaging your health: governments & big business using the internet to spy on people: heading footballs leading to brain damage; the adding of poisonous substances to alcohol during prohibition; the effects of Thalidomide...

View original

You appear to be confusing government cover-ups with conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theories often are about government cover-ups. Cover-ups are usually the result of an organised conspiracy of some sort, after all.
If the moon landings were faked (and, let's be clear, they weren't!), it was the results of some cover-up by Nasa or the government. The same with all the flat earth nonsense and all that stuff.

Quote: Chris Hallam @ 27th August 2020, 7:49 AM

Unfortunately, you then went out of your way to avoid acknowledging Trump's tactic endorsement of the lunatic theories we were discussing is absurd and dangerous. You also sidestepped acknowledging that the rumours about Trump and Russia are frighteningly plausible, prompting our resident Trump cheerleader into repeating a more outlandish conspiracy theory himself.
But a good point initially.

View original

That's because the whole point of my post was to address the belief that all so-called "conspiracy theories" are automatically nonsense (except, apparently, those that one believes oneself). I had no interest in prolonging my already long post by discussing a matter that had already been discussed at inordinate length. Not everything on this thread has to revert back to Donald Trump.

Does it not?