Are we conspiracy theorists by nature?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by DarkLight, Feb 6, 2016.


Tags:
?
  1. YES, absolutely! Why do you ask, hmmmm?

  2. Yeah, I think we are in general.

  3. Maybe, maybe not. I'm sure this is being tracked by someone somewhere...

  4. Some of 'them' are, but not me.

  5. No, not really. I've just seen a lot and don't put much past anyone anymore.

  6. NO! They really ARE out to get us! It's TRUE!!!!111!1

  7. Abstain

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  1. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    Okay, so I didn't want the title to be too long, but the question is:
    Are those of us who are preppers, survivalists and/or self-suffcientists, also conspiracy theorists by nature?

    I've been on a lot of boards over the last several years and I've always kind of wondered this. It seems like we as a group tend to lean towards at least wanting to believe conspiracies and the associated theories.

    Now, this is not to say that we're crazy (although some of the theories out there are kind of...well, out there), or to say that we're wrong, just that we as a group seem to "Want To Believe". Sometimes it's the worst in people, sometimes it's aliens, sometimes it's the worst aliens...just, you know, sayin'.

    I know that a lot of conspiracies have panned out or don't look so nuts in hind-sight and as things go on longer and longer. Just wondering.
     
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  2. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    There is a highly vocal minority that love the conspiracies and use them to shake up sheep and attract attention by repetition. And they KNOW that sites like SM will tolerate the endless raves as long as it doesn't violate the CoC. (Gotta say there's a short list of them on board I would not miss.)

    Since that isn't an option, "abstained."
     
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  3. Legion489

    Legion489 Rev. 2:19 Banned

    Well I for one am not a conspiracy theorists by nature, too many of them turn out to be true, so they are not conspiracy theories.

    (Gotta say there's a short list of them on board I would not miss.) Well ain't that the truth!
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
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  4. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    I've grown to have an incredible distrust of nearly everything the .gov tells me. So valid or not, I tend to look for the real story when I've been spoon fed an official story. I don't think it's just a small minority that feels this way although some are more vocal than others.
     
  5. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    I got the impression from @ghrit that the small minority statement was directed at the vocal group. I fall into the Yeah, or the I've just seen too much categories myself.

    ETA: Added abstain to the list. @ghrit
     
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  6. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    I agree that dot gov is not to be trusted especially in the immediate aftermath of an event. At the same time, if these conspiracies exist, entirely too many insiders with the risk of exposure ever increasing have to be active participants and willing sycophants; not credible in the long haul. To me, jumping on early rumors of what caused this or that creates more smoke than fire. As a society, we have less patience than the attention span of a gnat.

    Once dot gov finishes its reports, I look to see if politics played a hand in the reporting. That often tells more than the published conclusions.
     
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  7. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    About wut?


    :D
     
  8. Legion489

    Legion489 Rev. 2:19 Banned

    Conspiracy theories:

    Well let's see...

    OKC: the BATF testified on front of CONgress they were 100 miles away playing golf until a photographer showed up with photos of all of them at OKC with chunks of the building still falling out of the sky on them and they admitted they lied.

    Seal Team Six was not at Waco, and yet Slick admitted that he had pardons for them to be signed on his desk if they were caught. Seal Team Six is now dead, as are all of the guards Slick has for his first run as prez, and Ron Brown. Vince Foster found in the field who had been wrapped in a blanket, one set of foot prints out, one set back, who committed suicide in the field. Every reporter who checked on slick is dead...

    Monica - Slick: "I did not have sex with that woman, Hil...er...Monica Lewinsky."

    Roswell: The gov't has admitted they lied about it at least 16 times on the Official US Gov't website! "It was a weather balloon... OK, we lied it was really.... OK we lied, it was really...OK, we lied it was really.... "

    I'm sure we can get some Wiki instant expert to find us more.
     
  9. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    I think I'm defining conspiracy more in a dictionary way than the way it's commonly used to mean 'Crazy ass, alternate explanation for something that has happened or is happening'.
    upload_2016-2-6_14-34-19.

    One of the synonyms from above is 'plan' and another is 'collaborate'. One usage might be 'a conspiracy to manipulate the results'. I do these things every day in my work life... We might have a conference call where a group (more than 1) conspires or plans to affect an outcome. We may decide how we're going to present something (omission of details?) so that the counterparty agrees to our terms. We have lobbying efforts and political action where we make plans to get what we want. I'm fairly certain that when more than one person is charged with a crime, 'conspiracy to commit ________' is one of the many charges they'll be facing.

    I have no doubt that groups within our government do exactly the same thing, with or without nefarious intentions. It's not by coincidence that we've faced stricter gun control under both republicans and democrats. The group as a whole is planning (for the greater good even) for the eventual disarmament of the population.

    While alternative explanations can be interesting at times, I'm not very interested in whether or not the moon landing was actually filmed in a studio in Nevada. i just don't care and this is the type of conspiracy that I don't spend time theorizing over.
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
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  10. DKR

    DKR Raconteur of the first stripe

    [​IMG]
    maybe the fallout from all the TeeVee shows we watch?

    Then again...
    [​IMG]
     
  11. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    I just wait, sometimes for months, sometimes for only hours.

    When the RED flags outnumber daylight then I know I'm right.

    Ask the Kiwi Man.
     
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  12. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    So I'm getting that maybe we are more skeptical by nature, which is sometimes seen through tinted lenses as conspiracy theorists.

    @melbo, it's interesting how words get twisted. A conspiracy isn't a bad thing in and of itself, as you pointed out. It has however come to mean or be related to, in the main, of evil intent.
     
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  13. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    A little OT but the same thing happened to the word discriminate.
    I once mentioned to my 20-something year old son that a place we were headed for dinner was for people with discriminating tastes. He looked at me in shock and asked me when I became a racist.

    upload_2016-2-6_15-1-47.
    I believe the second definition is newer. I was using the first definition to mean that it was a place of distinction with really good (albeit expensive) food. He had never used the word used in a positive way and it had defaulted as negative. I explained that discriminatory is simply the ability to make a choice based on preference. i still think he stays away from the word but he's a professor so needs to be careful to not offend his students.

    The 1828 Webster's better defines this:

    DISCRIMINATE, verb transitive [Latin , difference, distinction; differently applied; Gr., Latin ]

    1. To distinguish; to observe the difference between; as, we may usually discriminate true from false modesty.
    2. To separate; to select from others; to make a distinction between; as, in the last judgment, the righteous will be discriminated from the wicked.
    3. To mark with notes of difference; to distinguish by some note or mark. We discriminate animals by names, as nature has discriminated them by different shapes and habits.

    DISCRIMINATE, verb intransitive

    1. To make a difference or distinction; as, in the application of law, and the punishment of crimes, the judge should discriminate between degrees of guilt.
    2. To observe or note a difference; to distinguish; as, in judging of evidence, we should be careful to discriminate between probability and slight presumption.

    DISCRIMINATE, adjective Distinguished; having the difference marked.​


    Interestingly, the same Webster's leans towards evil for Conspiracy:

    CONSPIRACY, noun [Latin See Conspire.]

    1. A combination of men for an evil purpose; an agreement between two or more persons, to commit some crime in concert; particularly, a combination to commit treason, or excite sedition or insurrection against the government of a state; a plot; as a conspiracy against the life of a king; a conspiracy against the government.

    More than forty had made this conspiracy Acts 23:13.

    2. In law, an agreement between two or more persons, falsely and maliciously to indict, or procure to be indicted, an innocent person of felony.
    3. A concurrence; a general tendency of two or more causes to one event.​

    Websters Dictionary 1828 - Websters Dictionary 1828
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
  14. Legion489

    Legion489 Rev. 2:19 Banned

    Another conspiracy: the changing of words to fit the enemies ideas. Webster wrote his dictionary precisely so the politicos could NOT change the meaning of the words in the Constitution. But when I point that out I am told that words mean nothing and it is a "living language" and if I want a language that does not change, speak Latin (well I speak pig latin, does that count?). And yet when I want to play poker with these same fools, they seem to insist that words DO mean things and refuse to play with "living language" rules.

    My point is made by Melbo above. Racist means "for or pro your own race", while bigot means to be "opposed to another race/creed/color/group." Why "pro-choice" instead of pro-death? The baby sure didn't get a choice! Why "Pro-life" instead of "anti-death" like all the lib-tards scream at rallies to save the life of a mass murderer, doesn't the baby get a chance at life? Why "anti-gun" instead of anti-freedom or pro-defenselessness or pro-helplessness?

    Either words mean something or they mean nothing. Like the rules for Survivalmonkey, either the rules apply to everyone equally, or they will quickly apply to no one, equally or not.
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
  15. GOG

    GOG Free American Monkey

    @Legion489, I'm so old that I studied Latin in high school. I didn't pass it but I studied it. :)
     
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  16. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Too much X Files --
     
  17. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    Each of us has our own perception of what is real and thus our own view of reality may differ from the next persons view. My view is biased towards not trusting that the governments best interests and my best interests will always be the same. It is in the army's best interest to capture an objective, perhaps a beach or a hill, and it may well be that 10 % killed is considered acceptable, but if you are one of the people who have to capture the hill, it is either live or die, no 10 % deaths allowed. Anyone who has served in the military as an enlisted man is a little paranoid about authority and being supplied enough information to make a considered opinion or being able to act on any decision that may differ from the official line. While it may not be a conspiracy, many times the words and data supplied to us is slanted towards a desire outcome. For example, the Obummer refuses to allow the term moslem terrorists to be used. It is always ISIS or something and the moslems are always by nature "a religion of peace".
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
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  18. GOG

    GOG Free American Monkey

    I've been around a while and I've seen a few things so I pay attention. I take a look at it, consider the source, if it seems credible I'll look into it further. I believe in "trust but verify". Am I prone to thinking this way? Yes and I'm alive which means it's worked so far.

    I think it was Mark Twain who said something to the effect that: "Most of the things I ever worried about never happened." I'm just prudent, not paranoid.
     
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  19. Legion489

    Legion489 Rev. 2:19 Banned

    Ah, there is another good word, "paranoid", which means "delusions of grandeur combined with delusions of persecution". Since I have no delusions of grandeur, I merely stand on the side of truth and light, and really am persecuted by those who hate the truth, such as when I point out the emperor has no clothes (he is also an idiot and a fool, but then even I find that is not politic to say that out loud. Or at least in public, well, not often anyway). Yes, I knew people who really were clinically paranoid, and quite a few who were considered (colloquially, as used above) paranoid but then it turned out the fools and scum really were after them, so they weren't. Even Leno wasn't paranoid when he said Obummer had him fired for telling a joke about Obummer, which was proven true. I'm sure that can be looked up on the net, or on Wikipedia by a Wiki expert.

    Actually Obummer uses ISIL, which is used by moslems to mean the coming moslem caliph ruling the world. Or some such. I am sure a Wiki expert can look it up for me, even if they don't understand what they are reading.

    Mark Twain also said "ain't we got the idiots on our side and ain't that a majority anywhere?" You can be pretty sure you are in the right, and not paranoid, when the idiots are lined up against you and want to shut you up.

    Petty tyrants, which are both petty, and tyrants, can't afford to have people laugh at them, or point out they have no clothes, even when they don't. They also can not admit they are fools, even when it is conclusively proven they are, and of course they are NEVER wrong, even when it is conclusively proven they are. I mean, what use is being petty and having a tiny bit of power over one small thing if you can't throw your weight around to show how great you are or push your betters around that actually know what they are talking about? Legends and conspiracy theories are often true when looked into, at their core.
     
  20. GOG

    GOG Free American Monkey

    Great Twain quote @Legion489. I really did laugh out loud. It's a gem.
     
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