What to do about the conspiracy theory problem?

[gold1]

@gold1 you must have missed my questions. What examples of the "There have been plenty of so called crackpot ideas that have turned out to be true or useful for that matter." can you provide?

Ok.Given that you are chasing conspiracy theory relevance according to an earlier post one can only assume they were taken as a conspiracy theory in the first place.
Some here would agree that the AFL has a conspiracy against the Tiges!
Named crackpot ideas over time have been plenty.The Wright brothers and airflight.Kennedy and the moon landing.Driving cars over 25mph which some eminent scientists said would peel the skin off the driver's face.Building a lighthouse in the middle of the North Sea on a rock with only a two hour window of opportunity to work.And need I go on? Were those conspiracy theories?Or just crackpot ideas that if the mountain of opposition and disparagement for even the thought of such a thing would never have gotten to fruition.This is why I say question but do not be blinkered by your own thoughts.

 

[Brodders17]

IMO one thing that humankind can do for this planet is to outlaw any logging in the Amazon,the lungs of Earth.Worldwide planting of billions of trees would do far more to tackle Co2 levels than what is being proposed.

But why tackle Co2 levels if they dont effect the climate?

 

[gold1]

But why tackle Co2 levels if they dont effect the climate?

?

 

[Baloo]

Ok.Given that you are chasing conspiracy theory relevance according to an earlier post one can only assume they were taken as a conspiracy theory in the first place.
Some here would agree that the AFL has a conspiracy against the Tiges!
Named crackpot ideas over time have been plenty.The Wright brothers and airflight.Kennedy and the moon landing.Driving cars over 25mph which some eminent scientists said would peel the skin off the driver's face.Building a lighthouse in the middle of the North Sea on a rock with only a two hour window of opportunity to work.And need I go on? Were those conspiracy theories?Or just crackpot ideas that if the mountain of opposition and disparagement for even the thought of such a thing would never have gotten to fruition.This is why I say question but do not be blinkered by your own thoughts.

Still not clear. You stated categorically that "There have been plenty of so called crackpot ideas that have turned out to be true or useful for that matter"

I'm asking for some specific examples of the plenty you are referring too so I can see for myself whether they fall into the "conspiracy" bucket we're discussing here.

There have been beliefs of what is/was/could/couldn't, but science and/or achieving them changed peoples beliefs. But of the examples you gave I can't see any that fit into the conspiracy bucket that Anti-Vax, 5G, etc tin foil hat type conspiracies we're talking about here.

AFL hates the Tigers is simply fact with plenty of solid evidence to back it up.

 

[RoarEmotion]

what drives my way of thinking? In short I dare to question.I do not automatically accept a theory/idea or what may be written in the paper!I assume you are referring to the climate change speak in my first post on this thread? That actually could have been about any topic but I responded to that post where it was more about climate change than conspiracy theories.
Even so I will try and answer your question and use the climate change debate as the subject.

I call climate change a climate CYCLE. Severe weather events have been recorded since Cooks arrival.Possibly before. I love a Sunburnt Country was not written as a fairytale! Time and time again we here of severe weather events like the flooding in Adelaide-being the highest for 70 years.One example of it happening before.The current so called triple La nina event we are experiencing,surprise surprise has happened before and the same areas today were affected in the fifties.The bad NSW fires?Were they as bad as the 1994 fires that started in August,surrounded three quarters of Sydney and was not extinguished till Feb the following year? The Lara bushfires.Ash Wednesday,Black Saturday. and so on.I think you get the drift.

IMO one thing that humankind can do for this planet is to outlaw any logging in the Amazon,the lungs of Earth.Worldwide planting of billions of trees would do far more to tackle Co2 levels than what is being proposed.

A simple example is here in Geelong.It was decided to plant trees on an old tip site near the CBD about 3 years ago,I have never seen such a short term growth spurt like this.It is now a forest thick and healthy. The council was worried that the unused tip was going to explode from the emissions before they took the step to plant the trees.

Enough now.As I said will get back to the footy threads.Safer there..........

Thanks for this. So if I paraphrase back it is that you don’t see a pattern of an an increasing frequency of extreme weather events and are sceptical that there is even a pattern. Conversely you think planting trees is important - maybe for non climate change reasons.

my thought would be (if it’s important to you) you should look for evidence to both support and reject this idea Vs just individual observations and if you got comfortable with evidence that said the frequency is increasing then you then need to decide if that is connected to man made climate change due to co2/ch4 increase. I think being sceptical of your own scepticism is important. I’ve had a look for this frequency myself.

The pattern theme seems very important for all of us - and I think gets to the root of the thread And probably describes a bit about how our brain works.

 

[DavidSSS]

It is not about refusing to get it that is the problem. It is the immediacy you and some others here label people. As I said previously I was responding to a later comment in this thread,not necessarily related to the opening post.Clearly attracted a hornets nest.Before I go and crawl under a rock away from this thread you did ask a couple of questions.
1. Outlandish or crackpot ideas? Would be dangerous to label all and sundry as conspiracy theories.There have been plenty of so called crackpot ideas that have turned out to be true or useful for that matter.Dare to question these ideas like you and others here should allow you ideas /insights to be questioned.Also those that clearly feel threatened here and choose to belittle (tiny mind retort by one silly person on this thread) others that are not towing the line go knock yourselves out.

re 2: I actually do not know.All I wish to add is anyone should be allowed to speak their mind in a non violent way and should allow anyone to speak their mind back in a non violent way.Using the football analogy we have competing supporters sitting side by side without incident most of the time.However when things go violent it changes the ball game.

And to finish: a Question for you.Is corruption in your scope range of conspiracy theorydem?

You did not answer question 1, you just went on about how crackpots should be given a megaphone. I suppose we should give flat earthers equal time. I assiduously avoided specifying what any one of us would consider to be a conspiracy theory, knowing that the topic here is whether they are more prevalent. An obvious deflection, deflecting is clearly not your strong point.

Corruption? Some is done by more than 1 person, hence a conspiracy, some is done by 1 person, not a conspiracy. Neither are a conspiracy theory so I fail to see the relevance. In any case, in a system ruled by private property and hierarchical power structures what do you expect? I expect corruption.

But back to the actual topic (hint - the climate change thread is here if you want to debate climate change: https://www.puntroadend.com/threads/global-warming.27593/ ), yes people should be able to speak their minds, but they need to take responsibility for spreading lies when spouting off the latest nonsense about paedophiles and pizza shops.

DS

 

[DavidSSS]

Ok.Given that you are chasing conspiracy theory relevance according to an earlier post one can only assume they were taken as a conspiracy theory in the first place.
Some here would agree that the AFL has a conspiracy against the Tiges!
Named crackpot ideas over time have been plenty.The Wright brothers and airflight.Kennedy and the moon landing.Driving cars over 25mph which some eminent scientists said would peel the skin off the driver's face.Building a lighthouse in the middle of the North Sea on a rock with only a two hour window of opportunity to work.And need I go on? Were those conspiracy theories?Or just crackpot ideas that if the mountain of opposition and disparagement for even the thought of such a thing would never have gotten to fruition.This is why I say question but do not be blinkered by your own thoughts.

Deflecting again, and badly.

None of these were crackpot ideas. We could see birds fly so flying is clearly not crackpot. We had rocket technology, the Soviets had already put people in space, so going to the moon clearly not a crackpot idea. By the time cars were getting up any speed trains had already well surpassed 25MPH so the crackpots were the ones stating that 25MPH was dangerous, to claim scientists said this you would need to cite a scientist saying this, go ahead, make my day! Building a lighthouse in the North Sea, they knew it would be difficult, they knew they needed to develop materials to make this possible, but it wasn't crackpot, just damned difficult.

No you don't need to go on, you need to actually address the crackpot ideas not pull out a pile of examples which were not crackpot ideas.

DS

 

[RoarEmotion]

Here is a list - where the correct view would have been held as a crackpot idea. Other than 10 which the author puts in for laughs. I think earth being centre of the universe should be easy to agree on.

Potentially we are arguing semantics. And I feel bad posting a link to the Houston chronicle.

The top 10 most spectacularly wrong widely held scientific theories

One of the very best things about science is that the discipline is self-correcting. A scientist makes a set of observations about nature, and then devises a theory to fit those observations. Other…

blog.chron.com

 

[Baloo]

Here is a list - where the correct view would have been held as a crackpot idea. Other than 10 which the author puts in for laughs. I think earth being centre of the universe should be easy to agree on.

Potentially we are arguing semantics. And I feel bad posting a link to the Houston chronicle.

The top 10 most spectacularly wrong widely held scientific theories

One of the very best things about science is that the discipline is self-correcting. A scientist makes a set of observations about nature, and then devises a theory to fit those observations. Other…

blog.chron.com

I don't see any of those being conspiracies. They were beliefs which changed when science was able to prove them wrong.

 

[RoarEmotion]

I don't see any of those being conspiracies. They were beliefs which changed when science was able to prove them wrong.

Agree - my bad - mixed up crackpot idea with conspiracy.

 

[DavidSSS]

I don't see any of those being conspiracies. They were beliefs which changed when science was able to prove them wrong.

Not to mention a fair few of them, if not most, pre-date the scientific method.

The scientific method is not the only way to discover knowledge but it is pretty damned good. Mind you, they still can't fully explain thermodynamics as far as I know, yet we can still build a steam engine.

We really should get back on topic though.

DS

 

[Tigers of Old]

Why do conspiracy theories exist? They stem from a lack of trust.

'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.'

This was true before the internet in traditional media platforms & it's still rings true today.

Reality becomes blurrier by the day with the erosion of reliable, reputable journalistic avenues AND accountability in Government . This MUST be valued, resourced & restored if our society is to thrive or things will continue to get a lot darker..

My no 1 concern with the internet & social media is that we're all becoming part of silos listening to what we want to (like mindedness) & blocking out other people's POV. Block, defriend, cancel. We're not listening to each other & this does not make for a better society.
The absolute irony is in our lifetimes communication has been the greatest technological advancement & yet as a society we've never been further apart!

I really hate the lean towards cancel culture & think it's dangerous as hell. The more that civilised debate is shut down, the crazier & more alienated people get.
Both sides are as guilty as hell of this right now.

We must restore the foundations of factual reputable, non biassed journalism & Government institutions?
How we do that when billionaire$ control the narrative is the challenge.

 

[Tigers of Old]

My favorite conspiracy theory is that Neil Armstrong didn't go to the moon, but a movie studio somewhere in the US.

Still don't understand why no other country apart from the USA has physically landed on the moon.
Images beamed into people' loungerooms on B&W analogue TVs. 2001 & Star Wars are made a few years later?
Now they're trying to land on the moon again despite massive technological advancements in space travel & communication.
Look it would be the biggest conspiracy in history but it sure is a head scratcher how they did it 5 decades ago & then it just stopped.
That was at a time when media could be controlled.

 

[Sintiger]

Still don't understand why no other country apart from the USA has physically landed on the moon.
Images beamed into people' loungerooms on B&W analogue TVs. 2001 & Star Wars are made a few years later?
Now they're trying to land on the moon again despite massive technological advancements in space travel & communication.
Look it would be the biggest conspiracy in history but it sure is a head scratcher how they did it 5 decades ago & then it just stopped.
That was at a time when media could be controlled.

Money.

If I remember correctly the lunar program was replaced by the program that resulted in the space shuttle and space stations rather than going to the moon. There was a lot of controversy in the US about the cost of the program and the NASA budget

 

[RoarEmotion]

Still don't understand why no other country apart from the USA has physically landed on the moon.
Images beamed into people' loungerooms on B&W analogue TVs. 2001 & Star Wars are made a few years later?
Now they're trying to land on the moon again despite massive technological advancements in space travel & communication.
Look it would be the biggest conspiracy in history but it sure is a head scratcher how they did it 5 decades ago & then it just stopped.
That was at a time when media could be controlled.

I don’t know but wasn’t getting to and landing on the moon in and of itself just a big phallic symbol? Stick your flag on the surface thing. Once you are first then that is done.

The main societal benefit being pride and the IP generated by the R&D? I imagine going forwards the R&D is where the benefits are vs landing on the moon so that would be more
Of the focus.

How $1 Spent on NASA Adds $8 to the Economy

The NASA budget is $25.2 billion, just 0.5% of the FY 2021 federal budget. Each dollar spent creates $8 of economic growth.

www.thebalancemoney.com

 

[mrposhman]

I don't see any of those being conspiracies. They were beliefs which changed when science was able to prove them wrong.

At the time though people arguing against some of those things would have been labelled as crazy. The conspiracy theory statement has only really been around for around the last 50-60 years.

The key thing to most "crackpot" ideas that have been proven to be true, is that people accepted science to prove them. There have also been significant other crackpot ideas that have proven to be false, again by science and in the past people have believed that.

Probably since the Kennedy assassination we have seen people continue to "question the science" as they call it. Most conspiracy theorists use this term as it sounds like they are critically thinking, but to question the science, you need to provide actual evidence to counter the current accepted belief. That all started with the Kennedy assassination, that people still question the Grassy Knoll theory proves how these conspiracy theorists now exist. The bullet to kill Kennedy came from in front of him, we know the bullet hit Kennedy's head and then hit his security who was sitting behind him. The science proves this, yet people still question it, and the reason (and we hear this all the time), but thats because "they" want you to believe that.

At the crux of almost every conspiracy theory is the theory that someone is trying to control the narrative, that someone is trying to control the population and the fact that none of this can be proved, appears to be proof of the existence of this other body. Take yourselves back to the New World Order, this theory has been going around for decades, apparently some power hungry groups, will change the world order and control the population, yet it hasn't happened. Either they are incredibly patient and want their ancestors to get the benefit, incredibly incompetent or the narrative is false. This one reared its ugly head again through Covid. THEY were trying to control us, THEY were going to change our lives forever, THEY were going to restrict our ability to do things, yet here we are, 3 years after the outbreak and our lives are basically the same as they were before Covid was first mentioned.

Science to disprove science is great, and there are ideas that would have seemed crazy at the time that have been disproved, but as with all of these theories, its science that came to that conclusion and is a good way to decipher the difference between a crazy crackpot idea and a conspiracy theorist. Crazy crackpot idea welcomes science to prove the idea, conspiracy theorists claim the science doesn't prove their idea because THEY are lying to you, or restricting information or something along those lines.

 

[Sintiger]

I don’t know but wasn’t getting to and landing on the moon in and of itself just a big phallic symbol? Stick your flag on the surface thing. Once you are first then that is done.

It was JFK who announced the US was going to the moon and it was at the height of the Cold War , not long after the Berlin Wall went up and after the soviets had the first manned space flight.
No doubt it was a phallic symbol as you describe it and what happened after that was they decided the money they spent on NASA was better spent on other programs such as the space shuttle and space stations.
It was probably a good decision in the end.
I was a very small boy when JFK announced going to the moon by the end of the decade as a target but as I understand it the aim was seen as unachievable by many at the time.

 

[Baloo]

Add to that they didn't find anything on the moon of value so there wasn't much point in going back.

 

[RoarEmotion]

Take yourselves back to the New World Order, this theory has been going around for decades, apparently some power hungry groups, will change the world order and control the population, yet it hasn't happened.

Sort of off topic but this reminded me of this card game I had as a teenager which was a massive *smile* take on conspiracy theories.

Illuminati: New World Order - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[TJsFurrow]

Prof Brian Cox's latest pod addresses this very issue. Some pretty interesting thoughts here:

‎The Infinite Monkey Cage: The Age of Conspiracy? on Apple Podcasts

‎Show The Infinite Monkey Cage, Ep The Age of Conspiracy? - 10 Dec 2022

podcasts.apple.com