What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?
I have a collection of conspiracy theories that I’ve gathered over the years. Moon landing denial is a popular one, but Flat earth is a pivotal belief for many conspiracy theorists, acting as the starter theory.
Flat Earth as a starter
The mental gymnastics required to align reality with this idea are staggering. This is the appeal – you’ve found head room for all this information and have connected the dots to show how governments, astronomers, lens manufacturers and satellite tv companies have conspired to make the Earth seem round. And because you’ve done this, you’re cleverer than the sheep who believe everything the establishment say.
You get to be condescending to people who question you. You hold forth about how Antarctica is an ice wall that keeps the lizard people in / keeps us out of the infinite realm beyond filled with fallen angel tech/ hides vast mineral wealth / whatever else you want to think of.
From there you start to believe any of the following:
There is no such thing as ‘calories’ in food. When did you last put calories into a meal?
The moon is flat because spheres don’t reflect light.
The sun was replaced with an LED sun simulator
Dinosaurs aren’t real, the skeletons are made in China using chicken bones and glue
Barack Obama is Adolf Hilter’s grandson and Angela Merkel is his aunt
Lotteries were invented to catch time travellers
Jet fuel isn’t real, they spray chemicals to control us and the weather from planes (chemtrail hoax)
There are loads of them.
However, thinking that the government lies about everything is not a strong intellectual pose. It’s as weak and lazy as believing everything you’re told, but you get to call everyone ‘sheeple’.
Why it matters
Many of the conspiracy theories seems harmless and are laughable in themselves. But convince enough people about your ideas and people die.
This was posted on X a few weeks ago.
At the time Anthony Fauci – former Chief Medical Advisor to the US President – was being interrogated about his actions during the COVID pandemic. He was subjected to a vituperative inquisition, even at one point being asked ‘who the fuck do you think you were?’ There was a pile-on during the hearing and online, ripping his professional and personal status apart.
Fauci has received death threats for his supposed involvement in a conspiracy to keep people indoors and inject them with body-altering chemicals.
The first issue is the link with the supposed corruption surrounding various elections in the US, in particular the 2020 election. Donald Trump has been using this to denigrate Joe Biden, calling into question Biden’s legitimacy as president.
Secondly, we have a group of people who don’t think Covid was real. This feeds neatly into vaccine denial, and this is when it matters. Spread disinformation about vaccines and people die. Measles cases are high in the US now, after flatlining for decades. Misinformation about the MMR vaccine is rife – it doesn’t cause autism, there’s a Danish study that shows this. This hasn’t stopped wild conspiracy theories influencing health policy in the USA.
It’s when lives are at stake that this sort of disinformation matters. Believe that baristas are faeries who want your name to steal your soul if you like. But don’t deny people life-saving medicine.
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