How to make sense of Conspiracy Theories - pt 5 of 9

[Sarusource]

4:09 'If the true definitions were adhered to...' And exactly... you are missing the popular definition of the terms 'conspiracy theory' and 'conspiracy theorist' as people believing in explanations which aren't true.

You are also missing the point that it is a derogatory term. You are trying to suggest that the true definition is 'neutral' when it obviously is not.

[robag88]

@Sarusource That's your definition and it doesn't override those in the dictionaries, none of which state the theories are universally true or false. I agree it's a derogatory term, which is a key point of this video ... not sure how you're missing that. Some try to use the terms as a catch-all to eliminate opinions they don't want to hear, yet they'll believe incredibly wild conspiracy theories disseminated by the media and governments. Everyone is a conspiracy theorist.

[webber1991]

1:19 read #5 and #9

@_@ it made the list twice

[robag88]

@webber1991 My mistake. The newspaper link is in the text version of the video on my website :)

[webber1991]

@robag88 no worries man, great videos!

[altratronic]

"...conspiracy theory is a substitute term for corruption allegation or suspected crime."

Very true. Great point.

[bistiknaw]

sheik Zubair!!!!! thats a new one never heard of it before Oo

[robag88]

@bistiknaw yeah, that one was new to me lol

[blah64924]

lol pause at 1:33 and read number 10

[robag88]

@blah64924 Yeah, I've met people who believe that and the funny thing is they have jobs, girlfriends, a social life and so on. On the other hand I've worked with mentally ill people who can't function in society. So I can't pass off the lizard believers as crazy any more than I can believers in God. What I've found with most "crazy" belief systems is that if you stop attacking it and just ask for a detailed explanation the logic generally turns out to be based on very common perceptual errors.

[nusquamesse1248]

lol "The disappearance of Sherger". I believe it's Shergar. Nice fact checking Telegraph!

[robag88]

@nusquamesse1248 That's probably my misspelling lol

[Metacomet7]

Once a conspiracy theory is proven to be true, does it not cease to be theory?

Why would you expect to see them on a conspiracy theory list?

[robag88]

@Metacomet7 A lot of them aren't 100% proven but are merely accepted as true by the establishment. The poor logic being that if a conspiracy theory gets rubber stamped by a government or several academic institutions then it must be true.

[JuanDeSoCal]

Great points about how common perception of term "conspiracy theory" has been framed in order to shield the powerful in the West.

[JaziB]

Microsoft sends messages via Wingdings?? What the hell....

[rabudman]

Isn't relativity "just" a theory? I prefer the term Conspiracy Fact when referencing the samples in this clip that are now known to be true. BTW as late as the '70's and '80's , during my school days, we were taught Lincoln's assassin was a lone, crazed gunman with no agenda other than the one floating around in his head...we now believe differently...

[hozayamz]

The Apollo moon landings actually become more absurd as the years pass. The most recent outrage against group psychology has to be Anders Brevik and all his victims with fake YouTube accounts. Collectively, the people in charge think you are a bunch of jabbering monkeys. . .

[Fistwagon]

@hozayamz "Anders Brevik and all his victims with fake YouTube accounts." What do you mean by that?

[hozayamz]

@Fistwagon There was no massacre on the island- I don't know if anyone died in the explosions in Oslo. The student victims are not real- YouTube accounts can be falsified to look like they've been around for a while- but there are telltale clues that these people do not exist. Look at some of the work that YouTuber "dallasgoldbug" has done with fake events using recycled actors in the USA. Many mass shootings never happened.

[Fistwagon]

@hozayamz Well, I just looked up "dallasgoldbug" and he seems to be either a real dunce or a dedicated troll. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the Columbine High School shooters according to him. Hehehe

[hozayamz]

@Fistwagon No shooters at Columbine, no deaths- it was an exercise in mass mind control. Don't worry about it! Just remember -some people DO sell their souls to make it in Hollywood. Thanks for checking out Ed's channel.

[SlyReflex]

You could say anything you didn't witness with your naked eye is a conspiracy, as you don't have all the hard facts on the topic. It's impossible to know every little factor in every event that happens in the world, whether it be an every day occurrence or global news. You could draw up theories on basically anything that happens ever by filling in the blanks you don't know.

[robag88]

@SlyReflex Precisely. Although people don't like to admit it, much of their reality is based upon perceived consensus because something has been said over and over by newspapers and on tv. But that isn't proof. Eye witnesses and documents aren't always 100% proof either, in fact most of the time we rely on them to form a best guesses.

[AL52Dragon]

I think the reason none of the conspiracies you mentioned at 2:50 are in the lists of top popular ones it that they have already, as you said, been proven or at least almost. They are conspiracies, actual events that follow the definitions that you laid out in previous videos, while things like 9/11, JFK and the Illuminati do not have any or as much solid proof, making them only theories that people will continue to talk about and speculate upon until an answer is found.

[robag88]

@AL52Dragon Several of those, even though they're more reluctantly accepted by establishment media, aren't 100% proven either. The "declassified" MKUTRA documents contain little in terms of evidence and could easily have been fabricated to scare activists. Op northwoods has been claimed as a fraud, though a top US gov source (who'll be mentioned a lot in next part of the vid) says it's true. The Business Plot rests purely on the testimony of a top ranking military officer etc.

[thumminxy]

Should people use the word Conspiracy Theorist to describe themselves so as to reclaim the word, or should people avoid it like the plague? I'm in two minds about it personally.

[robag88]

@thumminxy Reclaim it and apply it to all the contexts where it's relevant

[conrad152]

Excellent video robag88.

[LechuCzechu]

So to bottomline: the concept of conspiracy theory is used by the media as a debate tool to blunt their opponents argument. A person labeled a 'conspiracy theorist' looses his credibility whatsoever regardless if his argument was valid in the first place, thus winning a debate without uch effort.

This practice is as old as the eristic itself.

[LechuCzechu]

Furthermore, a fake conspiracy theory may be disseminated throughout the media in order to engineer a desirable social effect or to influence the public awareness of a particular problem. In example the Nazi party controlled media created the conspiracy that Jewish people were responsible for most of Germany political failures (including WW1) making antisemitism more popular.

[Izahdnb]

Don't forget the (fabricated) Gulf of Tonkin incident which started the war in Vietnam.

[666deadman1988]

Would you consider the current view of online piracy/copyright infringers by members of the SOPA lobby in the US at the moment as a kind of government/power group-disseminated conspiracy theory?

[robag88]

@666deadman1988 I don't know enough about the details of the bill, but I generally don't worry that much about censorship of the net. If it happens then dissemination of democratically important information will continue in traditional forms, such as leafleting snail mail and local campaign groups, combined with other forms of manual file distribution.

[TheRomanOsipov]

I believe you have made a typo (1:20). Bermuda triangle 5th and 9th place.

[robag88]

@TheRomanOsipov Yep, apologies for that.