Conspiracy Competition. I lay down the gauntlet.

luka

Well-known member
mr tea, mr sloane, languano, you etc have you ever wondered who makes this stuff up? someone must, might as well be us.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/
mayb this is a good conduit i dont know. we will think about it. we MUST get on of our ideas mainstream in the conspiracy world. if you believe you can achieve
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
Yes!

This is a brilliant idea for a thread.

I don't know anything at all about politics (I am allergic to politics) (and I don't think that that has stopped must ATS members) but I would be willing to help.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
When all's said and done, I reckon luka's probably responsible for a good 3/4 of it. But I'll give it some thought and get back you.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
That opening page is like a vision of hell. So many conversations, so little concern for facts.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I love how they have categories called things like "9/11 conspiracies" and "Area 51", and one of them is just called "Japan".
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I love how they have categories called things like "9/11 conspiracies" and "Area 51", and one of them is just called "Japan".

lol

I love the fact it's called "Above Top Secret" as well. It's all totally hidden and secret guys - Unless you have access to this crazy thing called the internet!
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Nah, it's the way food manufacturers use Best Before dates to try and make you throw away perfectly good food.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Pathetic failed thread by me

I didn't really understand the terms - what were we supposed to do?

I used to find them entertaining but I mostly find 'em depressing now, as they've become more and more part of the way people talk and think about politics. People have failed me.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm just puzzled by the prevalence of flat-earthers. It seems to be getting more and more common.

Potentially the most harmful of the widespread conspiracy theories is climate change denialism, although Jews Secretly Run The World shows no sign of going away any time soon. (Of course there's notable x-over between the two, as shown for instance by the delightful Piers Corbyn.)
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I didn't really understand the terms - what were we supposed to do?

I used to find them entertaining but I mostly find 'em depressing now, as they've become more and more part of the way people talk and think about politics. People have failed me.

In a recent episode of popular TV show "24 hours in police custody", a young man was arrested for stabbing someone. (He was a complete twat, frankly, but ended up not being convicted because of a lack of evidence).

Interviewed for the programme in the cells, he was keen to harp on about police corruption. The little sympathy I had for him soon evaporated when the evidence of police corruption turned out to be "all the symbols they have on their helmets, they're illuminati, yeah?"
 

firefinga

Well-known member
What I like most about conspiracy theories - apart from some of the basic ideas which seem absolutely hilarious to me like the secret Nazi empire located on the dark side of the moon - is the very common basic idea: That there is this shadow group uf puppeteers pulling the strings (usually, as you correctly pointed out Tea, its the jews, THE JEWS,MAN) who orchestrate world wars, stock market crashes, fake the moon landing, run paedophile pelasure camps for the illuminati etc etc, but fail to hide their evil ways from Joe Average who just deciphers it all.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Don't forget that they also like to encode clues about their dastardly schemes in, for instance, the design of the US$1 bill. For some reason.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I think it's a woeful part of popular culture now. In the 70s and 80s it was only cranks and subcultural types that namechecked this stuff. Arguably it had the potential to be amusingly subversive then (I think that's what Robert Anton Wilson was trying to get at with his "Illuminatus" trilogy certainly).

But the reality of this in 2017 is just shit stoner culture, really. And some guy holding up a pizza restaurant with a gun, trying to find abused children.

I think "Joe Average" is an entirely accurate description. It's not at all unusual to meet people who think 9/11 was an inside job or that David Icke has "some interesting ideas" or that things are controlled by a shadowy cabal.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm a member of a great FB group called I Don't Think That's Science. Well, I say great - I guess it's hilarious and worrying in equal measure. In particular, the hostility towards medicine of the great (mainly American) Facebook/Tumblr/Instagram-using public is frankly scary. The anti-vaxxer movement is only the most well-known aspect of anti-medicine conspiracy theory; many people also have an extreme prejudice against any kind of psychiatry, especially pharmaceutical psychiatry, and almost anything that's used either to help you not get cancer in the first place or to treat it once you've got it, from tanning lotion to radiotherapy, will be shockingly revealed as the cause of cancer. It's quite astonishing.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
Well, they usually see themselves as "Joe Average", don't they?

Plus, it's so easy to get invovled in those circles these days over the net. In pre-net times, you'd have to buy obscure books, check out odd catalogs, read weirdo fanzines. Those ideas floating around aren't new usually, but they're spread just way more easily now. And another thing doesn't help, namley the rare occasion of factual conspiracies like Italy's "Propaganda Due" :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think it's a woeful part of popular culture now. In the 70s and 80s it was only cranks and subcultural types that namechecked this stuff. Arguably it had the potential to be amusingly subversive then (I think that's what Robert Anton Wilson was trying to get at with his "Illuminatus" trilogy certainly).

Yeah, Wilson and Shea are/were obviously smart guys - I've not read Illuminatus! but I did read the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy a long time ago, and I gather it covers a lot of the same themes. It seemed to me that they were using these grand, shadowy, occult conspiracies as metaphors for kind of boring but very real conspiracies, like industry lobbies, think tanks, major religious bodies, the media and so on.

(All of which is not to suggest that groups like the Skull & Bones don't exist and have influential members - of course they do - but, as was depicted rather brilliantly in the most recent series of House of Cards, they're mostly an excuse for a bunch of rich blokes to dress up, get drunk and generally prat about, and also to fraternize and make contacts in a way that's not really any different from attending trade shows or using LinkedIn.)

But the reality of this in 2017 is just shit stoner culture, really. And some guy holding up a pizza restaurant with a gun, trying to find abused children.

Yeah, it's fucking tragic. And it goes to show that there's no-one more credulous than the man convinced that he and he alone - or he and a few select others, anyway - has figured it all out while the rest of us mill around going 'baaa'.
 
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