Lazerpig called it a Woozle Hunt, after the Winnie the Pooh story. Pooh and Piglet think they're hunting a woozle, but in reality they're just following their own tracks around and around.
ptz@dubvee.org 7 months ago
Occam’s razor answer: They’re crackpots with crackpot friends. One crackpot makes the stuff up, the others eat it up.
Did I mention they’re crackpots? Because they’re crackpots.
Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 7 months ago
ptz@dubvee.org 7 months ago
I’ll have to remember that. It’s much more well put than how I described it.
TakiMinase@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
MK Ultra
ptz@dubvee.org 7 months ago
For every real one that is eventually discovered, there’s 10,000 flying around in real time that are total bunk.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 7 months ago
All I’m saying is the first attempt on MLK’s life came from a schizophrenic black woman during the height of MKUltra’s operations while she babbled about things the CIA hates, and their favorite test subjects were disenfranchised schizophrenics.
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 7 months ago
This is the important difference between conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Once there’s actual evidence, it’s no longer a conspiracy theory.
For example, the fact MK Ultra was real does not prove the fact we are ruled by lizards.
FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Evidence existing is a very low bar, It’s when it’s proved beyond reasonable doubt that it stops being a theory.
vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
“I prefer to think of it as more of a conspiracy hypothesis, really”
nickhammes@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It can be worse than that sometimes. The crackpots see some nuggets of truth, and for whatever reason, they make some leap in interpreting them that leads them to nonsense. They keep finding things that are either true, and add them to their worldview, or made by people who took compatible leaps of logic away from reality. They propagate it to others.
Taking Kennedy’s assassination as a classic example: it’s true that a lot of people wanted him dead, some benefited from his death, the CIA has a history of assassinations, and Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist who had once lived in Minsk. I can see why someone with just enough information to feel confident can arrive at a belief that the CIA or USSR killed Kennedy, while missing critical information to realize there’s no reason to believe either is true.
ptz@dubvee.org 7 months ago
There’s an episode of Voyager where Seven of Nine goes down conspiracy rabbit holes that’s a lot like that.
Basically, the first one turns out to be correct (although very minor), but it fuels more and more absurd theories. Essentially she goes into a feedback loop, over- and mis-analyzing everything until she’s convinced that every encounter she’s had with anyone has been part of a conspiracy against her.
So maybe “crackpot” was a bit harsh, at least in some cases.
nickhammes@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yeah that sounds like a realistic, if a bit hyperbolic, portrayal of at least some people’s experiences.
I haven’t personally been in any conspiracy theory rabbit holes, but I’ve seen a few people slide into them. There are some people who are so far out there they generate much of the nonsense, but I think there are a lot more victims than crackpots. And I think most of them have a nugget of truth or legitimate grievance in there somewhere.