Sometimes the most outlandish ideas sound totally plausible.
In this day and age when 'Saturday Night Live' and 'The Onion' sound like credible news sources, anything is possible.
It feels like a lot of humans will believe literally anything.
Redditor Jeffery_DahmerTV wanted to discuss the ideas that sound too crazy that they have to be true, so they asked:
"What is the most believable conspiracy Theory?"
In this day and age of alternative facts, it all seems like lies and truth.
Enlighten me.
Infection
Sick Computer Virus GIF by Achievement HunterGiphy"That computer viruses are made by antivirus companies to test their antivirus software."
astarisaslave
"Parents bought a new computer recently, the McAfee stuff was in there pretty deep to remove. The staff bogged it down, way faster afterward."
lt12765
War
"We are being goaded into waging culture wars that don't matter to keep us from waging class wars."
virgilreality
"Is this a conspiracy theory though? It would be if you assume it was engineered from the start, but this would also make it very unbelievable. But that existing conflicts had been fueled and taken advantage of by people in the position to for millennia is well evident I'd say."
Leseleff
Double Down
"Mattress Firm is a front for laundering money. There is no other reason for there to be so many. No one is ever even in there."
Free_Bingo
"Double down on this one! I have a Mattress Firm next to my job and I have never seen anyone in there ever. It’s been six years!"
cbcmama781
"I’m not convinced of this. Our local Mattress Firm is clearly baking $1k+ into their margins and then aggressively selling credit-based financing. Selling two or three a month probably covers everything."
Agloe_Dreams
Weather Issues
Climate Change Earth GIFGiphy"Those climate protestors that glue themselves to the road are hired by oil giants to make climate activists look stupid."
milanvlaman
"I feel this way about a lot of 'extremist' groups on both sides, that there are plants from the other side doing really stupid stuff just to discredit the idea."
Herr_Poopypants
The climate is changing. We have to come together. How is that a conspiracy?
That's All
Meryl Streep Pursed Lips GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"That the fashion industry purposefully doesn’t put pockets in women’s clothing so they have to carry purses."
diceunodixon
Financial Clean Up
"That the only reason that the US government doesn’t do anything with student debt loans is because then people would stop signing up for the army."
Brotastic29
"That and healthcare.
"When you join up you get healthcare fully covered for you and your family, and you can get a full college education.
If the government started providing either of those for civilians, no one would need to join the military anymore."
redF5veStandingBy
"I think so too. I know and agree with what that dude was saying but when I see or hear people use 'Army' as a way to generalize the military, it usually means that what they said is something they’re just repeating what they heard."
chefboiortiz
The Commission
"There's definitely more to JFK's assassination than the Warren commission made it out to be. Whether or not LHO was the sole killer, I find it fishy that the CIA was so desperate to hide information from the public."
Bitter-Record-3831
"There is a very well-done documentary that concludes it was an accidental discharge from a Secret Service agent in one of the cars ahead of him."
Babstana
"CIA probably considered the assassination a declaration of war against Russia. They’re probably covering up that they were about to start WW3 over it."
tangcameo
Dairy Pounds
"The Great cheese conspiracy. Each year the US government buys more and more milk to make more and more cheese. The US government is sitting on something like 2 billion pounds of cheese. Just to artificially inflate milk prices."
worfhill
"Not even a conspiracy, just an example of the government controlling the economy in favor of dairy farmers."
Glass_Pies
"I watched a documentary about this. It's actually true."
PreferredSex_Yes
They're Listening
government agent GIF by South Park Giphy"That the CIA posts questions like this on Reddit to measure their past and current work, brainstorm for future projects."
ZRX1200R
Ominous
"I have a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories. I believe the governments and 'leaders' of the world are actually rather incompetent, so much so, that they require the illusion of them being an ominous all-powerful all-seeing entity in order to remain in power."
"And to accomplish this they allow conspiracy theories like the Illuminati and etc to spread around to add a bit of urban myth to how 'powerful' they are."
"It's probably all a bunch of garbage Europe can barely communicate within itself you expect there to be some secret global order??? Oh, stop it haha."
SparkNoJoyThrw01
Sifting through what could and could not be true, could take forever.
Life is full of mystery.
People Break Down The Differences Between Biden's First Year In Office And Trump's
At the start of Donald Trump's presidency, protests raged in response to a ban he ordered via executive order to seven Muslim-majority countries. At the start of Joe Biden's presidency, the nation was still reeling from the Capitol riot, which had happened just two weeks prior.
The country is currently in a remarkably divided time and political bonds have frayed further, charged with anger.
But the real question here is how did these two men do?
Opinions varied, which made us more excited to read them after Redditor HannibalGoddamnIt asked the online community:
"Dear Americans of Reddit, how do you find this first year of Biden's presidency compared to Trump's?"
"Instead of taxing the rich..."
"Well, there is pretty much one thing that's continuing to make me mad. It's that Biden lowered the threshold from $20,000 to $600 to get a 1099-K form."
"Instead of taxing the rich, they want to go after the gig economy (like door dash, or Uber) or small time eBay sellers to nickel and dime them to death. Most people using these platforms are doing so as a side gig to make enough money to support their families. So let's go after those people and not the billionaires, right Biden?"
ColtsFanNY
To which this person replied:
"Guess it's good for my local card shop. Before the change I could sell for 80-90% of market value through various platforms. After fees I'd come out ahead of my local stores trade in value."
"Now, taxes plus fees means I barely make more, and dealing with shipping and customer problems just isn't worth the hassle. Now I just trade in for straight cash."
Weasel_Boy
"During the first year..."
"During the first year of Trump’s administration the majority of news headlines were about Trump."
"During the first year of Biden’s administration the majority of news headlines were about Trump."
st11es
To which this person replied:
"It’s actually kind of scary because Biden has done some things that need to be brought up but it’s like a radio silence around him. Unless it’s about his pets."
Legeto
"At least 90% of people..."
"At least 90% of people couldn't even tell you 5 things that the president has done since taking office, let alone give a good opinion on a president's performance. For some reason everyone cares a lot about the election process, and then completely ignores what the elected president does beyond that point."
HellizBlazer
To which this person replied:
"To be fair, that’s partly the point of a republic: vote some people in to deal with these problems since we don’t have the time and most aren’t qualified/educated enough on every world problem."
"Still, people should actually learn what a president does and pay attention to what they do, not just what happens to occur while they are president; although, it’s probably more important to focus on congress members that represent you."
selfproclaimedtot
"He expanded..."
"He expanded Bears Ears National Monument and so that’s a plus. Besides that, not much to say."
jebhebmeb
To which this person replied:
"He's also gotten a ton of judges confirmed. When it comes time to evaluate all the racial gerrymandering bills from red states, that's gonna matter."
gsfgh
"The minimum wage..."
"The minimum wage was supposed to go up. Still waiting."
The_Sad_Whore
To which this person replied:
"Plus he promised to eliminate $10K in student debt immediately and then just…. Didn’t. With no explanation."
OOOOOOO
"Meanwhile..."
"Trumps first year was breaking news nearly every day about how awful and evil the man was and how he was destroying our democracy. I bought into it all. Looking back, policy-wise, his first year was pretty basic and may have been good for our country. Optics wise, his presidency was a dumpster fire."
"Meanwhile, Biden’s first year has been the opposite. His policies are terrible. The country seems to actually be worse off than it was when trump left (this of course could be trumps fault to some extent, although Biden did campaign on how the buck stops with him). Meanwhile he gets handled with kid gloves by the media, for the most part."
IAmANobodyMA
To which this person replied:
"The Biden administration is quickly becoming a disaster. It's as if they are intentionally trying to make things worse. They are not held accountable by the majority of the news media - the same news media who knowingly lied about the Trump administration. A lot of folks are turning on the Democratic party, so the midterms should be interesting."
dee_berg
"He's managed..."
"He managed to make it a whole year without committing obstruction of justice, so that's a positive."
grombleduke
To which this person replied:
"The bar is so low."
sacrificialfck
"I feel like..."
"Is one year really long enough to see any true outcomes of changes though?"
"I feel like, if we think about it, a lot of changes that are put in place during a president’s time in office take years to make some kind of difference and then the current president gets blamed for consequences of some previous leader’s actions/decisions."
courtenax
To which this person replied:
"Is 4 years even enough either? How much can an administration even get done in that time? The other world leaders just laugh and wait it out for the next president."
BarrettBuilt
"The cost..."
"The cost of living part hit us all really hard. People who I knew were well off got slammed hard. Everyone is really struggling now. Meat prices are awful and so is gas. Groceries are looking the same as my truck payment now."
CuriousWrangler
To which this person replied:
"Where I live gas has gone from a 4 year low of $1.12/gal to a current $3.10/gal. Supply didn't shrink, so I can only assume lockdowns affected refining and distribution."
Wundei
"I just wanted..."
"I just wanted a return to the normal problems of government, not having to worry so much about itchy trigger fingers, massive grifting/corruption, gross incompetence, and boorish performances."
"So I guess I got what I wanted. Do I wish Biden were better? Yeah, of course. But given the state of politics in Congress, I didn't expect much."
thenextvinnie
To which this person replied:
"So good that I can go back to ignoring the White House."
Singlewomanspot
And there you have it. Many of the discussions were conducted in good spirits.
Sure, a few disagreed and some were perhaps harsher than others.
That said, there is no denying that much needs to change in the United States before it can be whole again.
Have some thoughts of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
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Life and death. One of the eternal struggles. Who gets to have what?
The death penalty is a searing hot topic that is right up there with abortion.
There are people firmly against it and firmly for it.
How do we deal with the most insidious of humans? People who are depraved and left misery in their wake.
Is it enough to just have them rotting in prison, still breathing, when they claimed the life of another?
Many feel an eye for an eye is appropriate, others... not so much.
Redditor _ramgab_ wanted to discuss one of the world's most controversial topics. They asked:
"How do you feel about the death penalty?"
I'm not sure how I feel. It seems like a situation that has to happen to you somehow, to truly know how you'd feel.
Bad System
"There are people who deserve to die, but we can't trust our system to make good choices." ~ EarthExile
"The main problem but not the only one. If someone is executed for a crime they didn't commit the file is closed and whoever did commit it is free to continue."
"We got rid of the death penalty here in the UK for this very reason. A man called Timothy Evans was hanged for killing his wife. The man who actually killed her, their landlord John Reginald Christie went on to kill many more." ~ NiceOneCenturion
Doesn’t make sense...
"I personally think it should only be used for serial killers or mass killers because they’re just going to be going on and keep doing it. Pickton, Clifford Olson, Ted Bundy deserve it. In Canada Pickton is close to getting out after 25 years. So Canada’s most notorious serial killer will walk free? Doesn’t make sense. You can’t rehabilitate that." ~ jenh6
you killed an innocent...
"Some people undoubtedly deserve death. But how do you make sure you have REALLY got the right person? Judicial mistakes happen, and are more common than we like to admit. Lock someone up, and if there is a mistake you can correct it. Kill him and you are a murderer - you killed an innocent. That is why I am against the death penalty."
"EDIT: Some cases you can be pretty certain. You go to the guy's house, there's bodies buried in the cellar, body parts in the fridge, you know the whole works? Yeah I don't even care if he's mad, some things you shouldn't get away from - and if he's mad, its the sort of mad we don't need to recover."
"Other than this level of certainty? Even outright signed confessions have proven to have been extracted by guile (even going as far as saying "this will help us get the true guilty person!") from the innocent and weak-willed." ~ Tuga_Lissabon
Anders
"So let's take a person like Anders Breivik from Norway who slaughtered more than 70 kids on an island. There is zero doubt he did it. He deserves death, not a cozy cell for ending so many lives and ruining many more. That's where I'm for the death penalty. There is zero doubt he did it. They caught him there, with the guns. The plans. The manifesto." ~ Zonyxe
Gandalf
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” ~ Not_Zorns_Not_Lemma
"Lord of the Rings. Gandalf to Frodo on why Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance." ~ Helophora
Good points. Some people are truly heinous and need to be put down. But giving other humans that power of life and death, feels extreme.
John Knows...
"Against. Even the tiny chance of an innocent being sent to death is too much. Also the people that do the injection are not trained. Sometimes a few tries before they do correct and they die. There was a John Oliver episode about it that was eye opening." ~ Masfoodplease
Research
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates As long as the state can’t guarantee that no innocent person ever ends up on death row it is immoral for a state to execute people." ~ Heiminator
"All of them were convicted before the invention and modernization of forensics."
"Therefore it’s not a great argument when we can pinpoint a crime to an exact individual nowadays. Back then it was based mostly of circumstantial evidence but now we can detect the perpetrator with something as small as a strand of hair. That’s why not a single person on that list was convicted after 2005." ~ ___And_Memes_For_All
No Trust
"I don't think the government should have the authority to kill people." ~ DaveSW777
"I barely trust the government to get my identification correct let alone have someone’s life in their hand. They fuck up things on a granular level constantly. Should they really have the power to kill?" ~ ArchiveSQ
Switched
"No. It is better to not kill the guilty than to kill one innocent person by mistake." ~ Plastic-Eagle5966
"I’ve switched over to this side as I’ve gotten older. I used to be on the side of 'if the evidence is there and it’s damning enough, then the convicted should die.' But that first proposition, “if the evidence is there,”... if I’ve learned anything in the past 4 years especially, it’s that we can’t seem to collectively agree on reality in general. So no, seeing as we can’t, as a society, agree on reality, the death penalty should absolutely not be a thing. One innocent person put to death is too much." ~ ThatsMyQuant
Worst of it All...
"Some people definitely deserve to die, but that doesn’t mean anyone else deserves to kill them. Also, it’s kind of a get out of jail free card. I’d take death over life in prison any day (although it usually takes decades for the state to get around to executing people on death row for some reason, so it’s sorta the worst of both worlds)." ~ bananafishandblow
So many sides to one coin. This topic feels like it's never going to find resolution. Which is so often the case when death is involved.
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Sometimes suspicion can turn out to be true. And when the truth does out... Lord do the conspiracy theorists love to let loose.
Every tall tale and drama can sound like a fairytale on the peripheral, but every now and again we're proven that the strangest, weirdest people, we're giving us some facts.
Redditor forthemotherrussia wanted to discuss all the "what ifs'?" They asked:
What Conspiracy Theories turned out to be true but most people still don't know about them?
I don't normally subscribe to "theory." Show me the proof! Why is that so hard?
Lights Up
hack my life kevin GIF by truTVGiphy"The lightbulb conspiracy. A bunch of lightbulb manufacturers got together and agreed to lightbulb lifespans and costs for a few decades, holding technology back. Lightbulbs are supposed to outlast the people who buy them by now." ~ Wahooney
All the reasons...
"Chernobyl wasn't lost because of one mistake. Pre-crash checks revealed problems, but no one took it serious." ~ AngryPortal1234
"It's been a long time since I learned about it, but I'm pretty sure there were engineers/scientists that took it very seriously. They were just forced to proceed more or less. I'd be surprised if people didn't take it seriously, as it was a poorly designed reactor, and some people working there had to have known that." ~ somethingIforgot
One Shot
"CIA heart attack gun. A gun that shoots an ice block dart containing some animal Shellfish poison that dissolves destroys in the body. This poison would cause a heart attack, believing the victim dies under natural circumstances."
"https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/artifact/senator-frank-church-and-senator-john-tower-cia-poison-dart-gun-photograph". ~ Motivational-Panda
Societies...
"Propaganda Due, an Italian masonic lodge that included many high profile people. The stuff they were up to is insane, and also resulted in the government of Italy passing a law prohibiting secret societies. They were behind journalist murders, press takeover, government policy, bombings etc."
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due". ~ emix75
Undercover
Avoid The Office GIFGiphy"The CIA was involved in smuggling cocaine into the U.S." ~ MrGiabris
Oof, that is a lot to digest.
dirty business...
Clutching Dave Chappelle GIFGiphy"The King of Spain evaded money and had/has very very dirty business because of his total legal immunity that authorizes him (constitution hasn't changed as for the current King) to literally do anything." ~ Guipucci
Motor Issues
"The Great Street Car conspiracy -- the fact that the USA had one of the most advanced and developed public transit systems in the world in the 1950s, and it was deliberately curtailed, stopped, and dismantled in concert between the government, GM, Ford, and other car companies, leading to the promotion and expansion of the inefficient, wasteful suburban sprawls that dominate America today -- all for the principle purpose of selling more cars." ~ theDashRendar
Villains
"MK Ultra." ~ LyannaCeltiger88
"Part of why it seems so unreal is how much of a total freaking mess it was, and the incompleteness of our knowledge about it! There was no overarching hypothesis being tested, no proper scientific rigor. Just throwing crap against the wall to see what happens. Generally a lot of drugs given to people no-one would miss to see what the effects were, but also other substances to see what the effects could be."
"When we think of conspiracies, we typically think of competent villains, but this was just a mishmash of whatever questions popped into the brains of whoever was giving orders with a large dose of Red Scaremongering thrown in (if mind control exists, we can't let the Soviets discover it first!)." ~ Malaeveolent_Bunny
These Actors Seemed Miscast But Absolutely Nailed The Role | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
The Actors Who Seemed Miscast But Absolutely Nailed The RoleFew people bought into the idea of Bryan Cranston in the role of Walter White before Breaking Bad...No Vegan
"Big Egg attempted to run a slander campaign against Vegan Mayo companies. They went as far as contaminating food and causing safety recalls in some cases until it was all exposed in a lawsuit." ~ shadowheart1
"I've worked in management positions in kitchens for over a decade. In the rare case I do receive proper training."
"There's always a section about people freaking with food. And I always think throughout the whole thing. Who the heck is gonna do that? I was always thinking psychos, killers, terrorists. My dumba** never though if the competition." ~ JillsACheatNMean
Into the Woods
Lyndon B Johnson Democrat GIF by lbjlibraryGiphy"Didn't the US government try to commit terrorist attacks against Americans in order to blame Cuba as an excuse to go to war, but Kennedy wouldn't let them?" ~ LR-II
"It was proposed. Operation Northwoods." ~ Re-AnImAt0r
Founded: February 4, 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog
The objective of the LifeLog concept was "to be able to trace the 'threads' of an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships", and it has the ability to "take in all of a subject's experience, from phone numbers dialed and e-mail messages viewed to every breath taken, step made and place gone".[1]
The LifeLog program was canceled on February 4th, 2004, after criticism concerning the privacy implications of the system.[4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
Founded: February 4, 2004;
~ CompositeCharacter
Dear Fred
"Fred Hampton was assassinated by Chicago PD." ~ Wazula42
"Not only was he assassinated by FBI, the only reason we know he was is because a group of ppl broke into the pentagon on Independence Day or something when there was low security and leaked documents to press." ~ UCPines98
"man from Tuared"
"I don't think a lot of people know they found the origin of the "man from Tuared" story. Basically the story goes back in like the 50s a man was stopped at an airport somewhere in Asia. His passport said he was from a country called Tuared. The country does not exist."
"The police couldn't figure out who he was and took him to a 4th floor hotel room. The man disappeared without the guards seeing him. There has been plenty of speculation of who the man was. Secret agent was probably the biggest theory. The whole story was based on an actual event but nowhere near as intriguing as the conspiracy theories."
"Over time it became a legend that's mentioned a lot with stories like the Somerton man. Recently they have found the original story of the man from Tuared and it is very different then the legend it has become."
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zegrus" ~ AlfaBetaZulu
Be Humane
Happy I Love You GIF by Looney TunesGiphy"Rabbits were legally classified by the USDA as poultry at the behest of the rabbit industry so that they did not have to comply with the HUMANE SLAUGHTER ACT." ~ slonneck
Pandora...
"Anything regarding the Panama and Pandora papers. It's crazy how people just skipped over this to crap talk streamers for making money." ~ Revenge_Is_Here
"The Pandora Papers are new, so you're not going to see much. They also reported, as did the Panama Papers, that much of what they saw was perfectly legal."
"Panama Papers investigations are ongoing. As of April 2021, various countries had recovered at least $1.36 billion and filed charges against several people, garnering some guilty pleas and jail time. At least 80 countries have opened investigations." ~ NetworkLlama
Absolute Power
"Nixon wiretapped the democrat party headquarters to determine their strategy and then tried to use his power as president to cover the crime. Obviously it's now not seen as a conspiracy but I'm sure there were strong allegations at the time." ~ erisod
"Watergate was bad, and it rightly lost him the presidency. But his backchannel torpedoing of LBJ's Vietnam peace talks should have ended his career years before we got "gate" added to the end of all scandals ever." ~ meeeeetch
Wasted Time
"In the US, tax companies like H&R Block and Turbo Tax lobbied the government to intentionally keep taxes absurdly difficult to file so that you'd be more likely to pay for their services. The IRS has all the information needed to basically just send you a bill to review once a yeah, but they instead ensure that citizens have to fill out needlessly complicated and extensive forms confirming what the government already knows just so tax companies can receive an obscene amount of money annually." ~ Enjolraw
Who Cares?
Who Cares Judge Judy GIF by Lifetime TellyGiphy"People don't care about the NSA monitoring and surveilling everything we do. The idea that the government is wiretapping every phone and computer in the US was considered tin-foil hat ridiculous just a few years back. Now it's been proven by heroes such as Snowden, and no one gives a crap." ~ Yusi-D-Jordan
Lights On
"Planned Obsolescence. Manufacturers actually design their products to fail so we become repeat consumers. I believe it started w/ lightbulbs. The in the 1920s the lightbulb competitors met and agreed to stop making the bulbs last long. There is currently a lightbulb that has been on since 1901–obviously a bulb before the plan was set in place." ~ rot10one
The drama is endless. What will this list look like in 10 years? I shudder to think. But now I have to start some research.
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People Share The Wildest Conspiracy Theories They Actually Believe
Conspiracy theories are beliefs that there are covert powers that be changing the course of history for their own benefits. It's how we see the rise of QAnon conspiracies and people storming the capital.
Why do people fall for them? Well some research has looked into the reasons for that.
The Association for Psychological Science published a paper that reviewed some of the research:
"This research suggests that people may be drawn to conspiracy theories when—compared with nonconspiracy explanations—they promise to satisfy important social psychological motives that can be characterized as epistemic (e.g., the desire for understanding, accuracy, and subjective certainty), existential (e.g., the desire for control and security), and social (e.g., the desire to maintain a positive image of the self or group)."
Whatever the motivations may be, we wanted to know which convoluted stories became apart of peoples consciousness enough for them to believe it.
Redditor Lopsided_Confusion57 asked:
"What's the wildest conspiracy theory you fully believe?"
We can't say any of these are true but sometimes it's fun to speculate.
The time traveling cyclist.
"The Australian cyclist Mick Rogers is a time traveler."
"In the 2002 Tour Down Under, Rogers was in a great position in the breakaway and looking to move into the overall race lead but a collision with a motorcycle left his bike out of commission. With the team service car and mechanics way down the road, it looked like Rogers' chances were gone. Then a cycling fan, who just happened to be at that precise point in the road, offered Rogers his bicycle to continue on. The bike also just happened to be the *exact* model of Colnago that Rogers had been riding. It was the correct size, right down to things like the stem and crank lengths. It even had the same pedal system that Rogers was already using, so he could just clip in and be away. He finished that stage and took the race lead, which he held on to all the way to the end for his only career win in his 'home' tour."
"My theory is that in the original timeline, Rogers didn't win the 2002 Tour Down Under. He quit cycling in anger and devoted his life to theoretical physics and solving the problem of time travel just so he could arrange it to leave himself a spare bike where and when he needed it."
- jnhummel
"I'm on board for whatever book or screenplay you write."
"Wait, so if Rogers motivation to find ways for time travelling was losing 2002 race, and if he won, then Rogers never found time travelling and our time line is forever devoid of genius like Rogers who would have found time travelling and attended Hawkins party."
- Skulldab
"Yep, exactly. Our timeline is stuck with boring old Mick Rogers, 2002 TDU winner and 3x World Time Trial Champion while some other, much cooler, party timeline gets Mick Rogers, the second coming of Einstein. He probably even cures Covid for them."
- jnhummel
The best money making stunt.
"Information is leaked from a studio about an upcoming project that p*sses off the fan base. The studio will then change things to keep the fans happy. The conspiracy is the original leak was just a lie to drum up free publicity for the project."
"This made me think of the Sonic movie. No way in hell were they going to make Sonic look that bad. Put out a fake trailer with him lookin all scary, everyone is talking about it. Wala. Take a bit to say you're fixing his look, put out a new trailer. You just drummed up tons of publicity since people are now following the story."
"I have mixed thoughts to that one."
"I mean 'No way in hell were they going to make him look like that.' Buddy have you seen the cash-grab BS that Hollywood has pulled off before? Hell, when was there a movie based off a game that wasn't exactly as bad as that Sonic looked?"
"I will admit that they may have done that as a publicity stunt, but I also admit that they could have thought it looked fine."
"Have you seen … CATS?"
- off-chka
Governmental assassinations.
"100% of the population believes that Putin has had people killed for political reasons but only a very small percentage of Americans believe that American politicians would ever do so."
"I mean, there's a reason the joke/saying is, 'The highest award a journalist can receive is being assassinated by the CIA.' There's probably been a handful who may've found out one too many things on the elites, and then had an accident before they could publish their findings."
"Ohhhh boy then south american journalists in the 60s-80s have been awarded way too much."
"MLK was literally murdered by the government."
"Lots of Black Panthers were too."
'"As part of the larger COINTELPRO operation, the FBI was determined to prevent any improvement in the effectiveness of the BPP leadership. The FBI orchestrated an armed raid with the Chicago police and State Attorney on Hampton's Chicago apartment.'"
"Quote from the Wikipedia article on Fred Hampton."
Conspiracies for the conspiracies to cover up the conspiracies.
"The CIA creates conspiracy theories to provide cover for the real conspiracies."
- Argle
"It's actually kind of scary how smug anti-conspiracy discourse is used to derail actual conversations. A moment that chipped my faith in humanity just a little was when I was arguing with some people about Guatemala in 1954 and people denied my version of events happened 'because it's a conspiracy.'"
"Like no the parties involved admitted to it."
"If you don't know what I'm talking about and are from the USA you should have a google. But, basically the USA destroyed a democracy because it made a corporation sad."
"What's worse is when people will talk about how corrupt insert what politicians they don't like are, but then when you mention something that is actually confirmed to have happened, they pull the conspiracy theory card and act as if the idea people in power don't want to secure further power for themselves."
"We have been conditioned to think like that from since we started school though (I guess that's my submission for this ask post)."
"I think I remember reading about some CIA agents AMA. Someone asked him the question, 'What's the point of area 51?' The answer was, 'To keep your attention away from area 50 and 52.'"
"Obviously not an exact quote, but the idea of it has always stuck with me."
Extinct animals not actually being extinct for preservation.
"I think it is entirely plausible that the Thylacine still exists in the depths of the Australian mainland and the government knows it."
"It wouldn't be that crazy for misguided scientists to have moved or released a few in the late 1800s. Once the animal went extinct, they certainly couldn't reveal the existence of the mainland population lest poachers and local farmers destroy it. They also may have realized how significant the liability was for releasing large predators into farmland."
"Folks have found hair and scat samples that may be from the animal, but the university lab results always come back and say they are nonsense. That's probably the truth, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the government was strong-arming them into reporting BS results. TBH if I was a conservation scientist it wouldn't take much convincing for me to fake a negative test."
Robert 'Curt' Borton Jr.
"I believe in a LOT of really boring conspiracies. Stuff like. 'This person was about to expose corporate/government corruption, and then died suspiciously.'"
"But if you want to go for a more intense one, Robert Borton, who I just learnt about, takes the cake. tl;dr guy disappears in Vietnam and really strange sh*T happens to his family."
"This guy, Robert 'Curt' Borton Jr. turns 19 in 1965, he goes to fight in Vietnam. He lands in 1966 and vanishes 19 days into his deployment alongside 3 other soldiers."
"In 1976, two guys approach his dad and claimed to work for the Department of Defense. They asked him to sign a letter that would change his sons status from 'Missing in action' to 'Killed in action' and he refused. Arguing the military would not confront people in public to sign documents. However, in the following weeks he was approached again by these two guys in public places and eventually signed it out of fear. He later received money for doing so."
"His sister then claims that every time they've seen Curt's official files, the entries keep changing, and his sister claims her phone was being wiretapped. A cousin believes that everyone was being watched, claiming that he was followed to work several times and that two men would follow him from his home to his company and then back. After this went on for a month, he decided to confront them, but they denied following him. After that, for about a month, he was not followed."
"The family is convinced Curt was part of a secret government operation that brought him from Vietnam into the United States. Diane believes that he has tried to contact her and other family members on multiple occasions. She claims that she has talked to a man who is a "secret returnee" and that they are allowed to come back to the United States, as long as they do not contact their families. She believes that this was done because the U.S. government had already claimed that all of the living POWs had been brought home; since they were still left behind, they could not become known to the public."
We may never fully know if any of these are true. Given the track record and history of most governments in the world, maybe some of these aren't so far fetched.
Only you can decide what you believe or not.
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