Honestly speaking, I feel like conspiracy theories are a very American thing, probably stemming from a lack of transparency and a general distrust of institutions. But then again, I'm American so it might just be that I haven't been exposed to international conspiracy theories.
JWatson, it's the latter thing. I've spent a lot of time overseas and some of the places I've been they believe in this stuff significantly more than Americans tend to. But some of those places have even more distrust of their institutions and media (and with good reason). But trust me it's worse in other places and the history of conspiracy theories go back to before the USA even existed.
Fair. But I will add that, even though I don't know much about conspiracy theories outside of the US, conspiracies are becoming alarmingly common among the American population. Much of it is politically motivated (and many are complete bogus propagated by you-know-who), but that doesn't make it any less alarming.
The Castro one is true. The CIA tried like 100 different ways to kill him as well as the exploding cigar they had other weird ideas such as a poisoned milkshake, wet suit laced with bacteria and spores that would've given him a skin condition and an exploding sea shell, oh and LSD.
They actually came close with the milkshake but the waiter who had been brought on board to put the poisoned pill in his drink messed up. They had put it in a freezer for safety but when they went to retrieve it, it had frozen over and gotten stuck so when the waiter tried to yank it free the capsule shattered
Who are these total nutjobs who think that it was the Queen ordered Diana's death? Everyone knows that it was Prince Phillip! ;)
(seriously - British and never heard the Queen implicated before. It is always, every single time, Phil the Greek who gets assumed to be the one who ordered the hit)
But he later reneged on his deal with the lizard people and they got him in the end. Suddenly and unexpectedly snatched away just before his 100th birthday.
The Greek had to be more tortoise than lizard. Only a year before, aged 98, he goes out in his Range Rover, promptly smashes it into some poor woman’s hatchback and rolls the thing on its roof. Anybody here that has a 98yo relative? Now, just imagine them driving your car and flipping it arse-over-tit after a collision with another vehicle. How dead do you imagine they would be? Absolute mince. The man had to have some sort of shell. Maybe he isn’t dead, they’ve just put him in a shoebox somewhere while he hibernates.
Explain to me why we should adjust the answers to allow for your mistaken recollection of the name of the site or the woman rather than expecting you to get it right. I feel differently about names written in a different alphabet (Mendeleev or Mendeleyev) or writing system (Mao Zedong or Tse Tung, depending), but "Roswell" and "Magdalene" don't fit either category.
C'mon, the REAL conspiracy theory here is the Area 51 one. How else do you explain the millions of people who signed up to "see them aliens"? Or the video of the guy Naruto running near Area 51???
They're similar but not the same. Crack is diluted with chemicals to make it cheaper and smokable. Cocaine has been around a long time, but I think crack first showed up around the 70's and 80's, and the theory is that the CIA pretty immediately start distributing it into black neighborhoods. Because crack is so much cheaper, it's much more common in low-income communities than cocaine, which is more commonly associated with wealthy people who just can't think of anything to do.
It's kind of nice that we could find at least one issue in 2019 on which pretty much every wavelength on the political spectrum can agree that something is BS. Doesn't say much for the job done by the people orchestrating that alleged murder.
It's entirely plausible that Epstein killed himself, and certainly more likely that he committed suicide than that the Clintons had anything to do with it. However, it's probably equally as likely that Donald Trump had him taken out. If Epstein was murdered then Trump is by far the most likely culprit, if not Barr working on Trump's behalf.
I suppose conspiracies are stupid enough to claim Jesus practiced incest but I think it's harsh to assume someone that types "Mary" meant his mother. Certainly it's clearer who you mean by Mary than some of the other first name answers on this quiz.
Nah, they took care of that in the Old Testament with Adam and Even...and then again after Noah and his family became the only world survivors of the flood.
Well Elizabeth is a different person to Elizabeth II, but II just gets called "Elizabeth", so I wasted a fair bit of time coming up with proper Elizabethan answers...........
There are many different mutually contradictory but often simultaneously believed 9/11 conspiracy theories. In general, though, they attribute the destruction of the WTC to demolition charges planted inside the buildings. Some of these crazy people believe that planes were flown into the buildings (they differ on whether these were the actual commercial aircraft lost that day or not), some believe that these were just holograms, some believe that it was military planes firing missiles at the towers before crashing in to them (I swear I'm not making this up), but in any case I believe the planes/holograms/drones/missiles these idiots believe in were allegedly just a distraction and not the real reason the towers fell.
I am so glad that Al Gore and others have decided to "promote" the theory that the climate changes since it has been doing so for the past 4-and-a-half billion years.
Sure, and cars speed up and slows to a stop all the time for years, but that one time it goes from 70 to 0 mph in a half second by hitting a brick wall still totals it.
I've never heard of anyone arguing that "climate change" is a hoax, since part of the definition of climate is that it changes. The alleged hoax is man-made global warming, which has been switched to "climate change" to distract from the fact that global temperatures didn't increase dramatically, as predicted by global warming "experts" like Al Gore who said NYC would be fully underwater by 2016.
It was changed because some areas of Earth might become cooler even though the planet is warming up, plus there are numerous other effects on the climate patterns.
The Jesus lived and married theory is properly a heresy rather than a conspiracy theory - the conspiracy theory is that the subsequent bloodline was important in European history and secret organisations existed to protect it/ the belief.
The Castro and Epstein ones are the two most plausible of the lot, but there is no good evidence for either theory. Rumor in one case and conjecture in the other.
I always keep an open mind for this stuff. Sometimes governments confess the very things they used to deny and the previous 'nutjobs' are proven right. Look at the state of the topic of UFOs, Pentagon itself is talking about them and by looking at the various documents they revealed to the public one can easily tell they deliberately tried to deny and debunk the people who tried to tell their experiences/thoughts. It is clear that official declarations do not automatically mean true, so they are not 100% trustable. That is not to say that we should believe claims without evidence of course, hence the keeping an open mind thing.
"One of these conspiracy theories is actually true - but I won't say which one!"
It's important here to distinguish between rumours and conspiracy theories. The modern usage of the phrase "conspiracy theory" basically means 'something which I and other intelligent people can see is crazy but other people believe to be true'. Hence something will be dismissed as "that's conspiracy theory".
A conspiracy theory may be true or untrue, it is no more likely to be true or untrue just because there was a conspiracy.
Finally I think this common understanding is quite dangerous. If someone actually were wanting to commit a conspiracy then it becomes almost impossible to allege it without looking like a lunatic - perfect for any real conspirator.
Its funny how many of these 'theories' are facts and mounds of evidence support them while other wild theories are thrown in. In other words, Elvis probably died in 77 but the global warming official stance is a conspiracy in and of itself. The moon landing and 911 official stories are certainly bunk.
This way, theories with little evidence are bulked in with theories which are likely true and supported by much evidence. This is an association lumping to discredit likely theories.
It's like saying 'Christians, conservatives and terrorists,' like they all three go together.
The US Senate, including Trump-loyalist Republicans, has acknowledged that Russia undoubtedly interfered in the election on Trump's behalf. That is established fact. The question is merely whether Trump and his people participated or merely benefited from it. Trump's slavish devotion to Putin might just be a symptom of his admiration for tyrants, but it might also be evidence of his indebtedness. I don't think it is established that there was collusion, but Russia certainly interfered to help Trump, and Trump certainly loves Russia, so it's not implausible.
drie that opinion is not right-wing it's full-on lunatic. both aspects of it.
jmellor: it has been thoroughly documented and established that there was, indeed, collusion, by any reasonable definition for the word. Collusion is not a legal term in the US, though. Was there criminal conspiracy? Beyond any reasonable doubt, yes. Is there enough evidence to prove criminal conspiracy in a court of law and get a conviction? Expert legal opinions differ.
We've yet to have a president with that name. If we could, however, somehow get a bidet to be president, I'm sure that it would do a better job than at least one real president in recent memory, and probably 3-5 throughout history.
The person who got shot in Dallas was shot for trying to investigate in to a countries nuclear powerplant, for if this powerplant could be used for building nuclear weapons and if so try to stop it. This country did not get happy about it and thus shot him over it.
The CIA introducing crack into African-American communities in the United States is absolutely true, as evidenced by admissions by politicians who worked with many racist politicians.
The worst 9/11 conspiracy theory I ever heard was by a roommate many years got that there was no one in the Towers when they collapsed.
Having grown up in NJ, I knew a handful of people who made it out safely, and one who didn't. I really wanted to pop him in the face for spreading such a stupid conspiracy theory, but thankfully remembered he was my friend and used that leverage to debunk it.
It's definitely true that airplanes destroyed the Twin Towers. The more interesting theories, in my opinion, are about who did it. George Bush? The Vatican? Israel?
Whats funny is no one wants to talk about how FDR did in fact know a Japanese attack was likely and needed it to get into the war. However he, and all his staff, assumed the attack would be on the Philippines. It was the location, and not the attack itself which caught him off guard.
The Japanese did attack the Philippines though. They semi-simultaneously attacked various places (Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines etc.) alongside pearl harbour
I totally thought the guy's name was Ebstein, not Epstein (the Ebstein-Barr virus must have gotten to my brain). It'd be nice if this was an accepted answer
I hate how people spread lies about 9/11. You can obviously see that it wasn't a planned detonation and they are almost disrespecting all the 3000 people who died that day.
They actually came close with the milkshake but the waiter who had been brought on board to put the poisoned pill in his drink messed up. They had put it in a freezer for safety but when they went to retrieve it, it had frozen over and gotten stuck so when the waiter tried to yank it free the capsule shattered
(seriously - British and never heard the Queen implicated before. It is always, every single time, Phil the Greek who gets assumed to be the one who ordered the hit)
Radical Republicans - Abraham Lincoln (1865)
Joseph Stalin - Vladimir Lenin (1924)
1) Nobody
Have you ever tried to hang yourself with paper bedsheets off the top of a 4-ft tall bunk bed? I haven't, but I'm pretty sure it's not easy.
It's important here to distinguish between rumours and conspiracy theories. The modern usage of the phrase "conspiracy theory" basically means 'something which I and other intelligent people can see is crazy but other people believe to be true'. Hence something will be dismissed as "that's conspiracy theory".
A conspiracy theory may be true or untrue, it is no more likely to be true or untrue just because there was a conspiracy.
Finally I think this common understanding is quite dangerous. If someone actually were wanting to commit a conspiracy then it becomes almost impossible to allege it without looking like a lunatic - perfect for any real conspirator.
This way, theories with little evidence are bulked in with theories which are likely true and supported by much evidence. This is an association lumping to discredit likely theories.
It's like saying 'Christians, conservatives and terrorists,' like they all three go together.
jmellor: it has been thoroughly documented and established that there was, indeed, collusion, by any reasonable definition for the word. Collusion is not a legal term in the US, though. Was there criminal conspiracy? Beyond any reasonable doubt, yes. Is there enough evidence to prove criminal conspiracy in a court of law and get a conviction? Expert legal opinions differ.
anyways back to my bunker
https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/Mary-Magdalen
https://www.smmschool.org/
https://stmarym.org/
Having grown up in NJ, I knew a handful of people who made it out safely, and one who didn't. I really wanted to pop him in the face for spreading such a stupid conspiracy theory, but thankfully remembered he was my friend and used that leverage to debunk it.
He now no longer believes that.