Submitted 11 hours ago by PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
I don’t really know what constitutes a conspiracy theory. Diamonds in wedding rings are essentially worthless, yet people still pay exorbitant amounts for them. So, I guess I’ll leave it to personal judgment.
The most destructive one I’ve seen has been the anti-vax crowd. Almost feels like a state actor trying to gaslight the world.
yeah.. almost.
Deep State
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_conspiracy_theory_in_the_United_States
The moon landing was fake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories
Proof of aliens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_conspiracy_theories
There is so much material out there from people in the CIA itself telling how the cannon of all this stuff is them making people believe that shit, e.g. area 51 to distract from actual weapon testing.
Anti-vaxx and other covid related stuff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation
Covid must have multiple but I don’t remember hearing about any concrete ones.
I remember “Covid was a Chinese bioweapon” being popular, alongside “Covid is fake and just an excuse for the government to inject us with 5G microchips”
That’s because it got mixed up with the very real and muddy “lab leak vs natural jump” debate.
My favourite atm is that kirk's wife had him killed.
Avril Levine was replaced by a clone many years ago
I like the theory that suggests that JonBenét Ramsey wasn't killed, and was instead kidnapped and secretly raised by her captors to be a singer, and grew up to become Katy Perry.
My least favorite one is ancient aliens, because it is both inspired by Carl Sagan and inspired a ton of sci fi especially Stargate, but it’s also just white supremacy with extra steps.
I’m so conflicted.
How is ancient aliens inspired by Carl Sagan?
He wrote a book in the 60s that kind of suggested it was a possibility, but then walked it back within a few years and criticized people who latched on to it.
Intelligent Life in the Universe is the book.
I would guess:
Popular in media but probably not many actually believe:
Try selling diamonds jewelary on the second hand market. You’ll get the gold value.
9/11 was an inside job. There’s a belief that elements within the U.S. government orchestrated the attacks.
I think the US government knew about it, maybe not exactly orchestrated it, but they intentionally allowed it to happen to justify expanding powers.
I mean like… I only believe this 60% true, there’s 40% of me that think government is just this incompetent.
I think even that gives them too much credit. It’s just incompetence.
The US “did 9/11” by interfering with global affairs for decades until one of those schemes finally backfired.
I don’t think there’s any conspiracy necessary beyond that to explain everything.
I’ve seen a clip from a Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) that describes the motive weapons companies could have for it very well, the government wasn’t necessarily involved but I believe some of the elite definitely were.
I believe this one. Today I learned the owner of the WTC had it insured against terrorism just 6 weeks prior to its collapse and made $4.55 billion. I had a chat with the AI about probabilities and it doesn’t paint a good picture.
If only ai didn’t get its information from people like us casually chatting on the internet, then passes off everything we say as fact.
It had been the target of less permanent terrorism multiple times before that.
Discussing conspiracies is basically the worst case for mainstream LLMs. They’re both extremely sycophantic (so they try to figure out and tell you what you want to hear), and not grounded in real references.
If you must, use something like z.ai’s deep research mode, with a single even, neutral question.
The guy set up the insurance for the building he just purchased that had a terrorist attack in 1993. Of course he got insurance for terrorism for a building he just purchased that was a target for terrorists.
Flat Earth, the New World Order, the Illuminati, Jewish space lasers, Democrats/ Jews controlling the weather. MLK being killed by the government could be considered one, but, well. You know. All the classics.
Depends.
Birds aren’t real is fake, but pretty popular, because it’s funny.
Flat earthing is also fake but somehow has a huge following.
Depends are real, the US president wears them
He wears a catheter connected to a tube that leads to a urine collection bag tied around his leg.
Religion
I believe many religions are an analogy to the sun, but many people buy into it.
Deep state & FBI cover ups of child sex-trafficking rings run by cabals of shadowy elites linked to the unfalsifiable existence of the Epstein files.
Ronan Farrow is the biological offspring of Frank Sinatra, not Woody Allen.
Chemtrails
lluminati / New World Order. A secret elite supposedly controls world governments and economies.
I think the only reason this is a conspiracy is because it claims there are shadowy, secret people coordinating their activities and running the world behind the scenes and only the conspiracy theorists will ever be clever enough to figure exactly out who they are.
In reality the political elites and billionaires are already doing exactly that very obviously and in plain sight with zero subtlety, making a public performance out of national relations while regularly meeting and being perfectly cordial and strategizing and horse-trading together behind doors, living a life of wealth and privilege, establishing themselves as minor celebrities and making sure people are always talking about them, and apparently hanging out on tropical islands with child-molesters. We know this is generally factual for very many of them, unless you think all the Wikileaks wires and Epstein files stuff is somehow faked. Unless you just haven’t read them. It’s pretty fucking clear what’s going on in my opinion. No need for a conspiracy to be able to see what’s going on in the circles of power. It’s not much of a secret anymore.
In reality, an open elite controls world governments and economies.
The only thing that makes me think of this is operation paperclip, but that’s not reason enough to believe their is a single group in control. More like many powerful groups like Blackrock pulling strings.
Every construct theory in it’s most extreme form always seems to end up antisemitic, so I’d say the antisemitic tropes.
The titanic one is a good one
Fun fact in financial circles its a popular one. Especially given the old money aboard happened to be big in banking and wouldve opposed major central banking laws.
Qanon
That's a lot of conspiracy theories.
People online actually exist and aren’t just a simulation.
carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 9 minutes ago
Chemtrails, trump not being a felon, 5G caused Covid, horse de-wormer covid cure, driving bleach cures autism, god