Conspiracy Theory: Conspiracy theory sites and video pages are virtually all just grifter honeypots to create a concentrated audience of idiots.

[Amused]

Every single doom and gloom economic collapse conspiracy channel that consistently makes wrong predictions yet maintains vast numbers of followers links to precious metal sellers and tax evasion scams.

The rest link to alt-med woo and other scams like EMF protection from your evil smart meter or WiFi 5Gs.

Republicans/hard right fascists have latched onto this business model as well.

My theory is the vast majority of conspiracy theory rabbit holes exist to weed out any and all critical thinkers and in the end, you have a concentrated group of complete idiots ripe for grifting.

This explains the massive amounts of time and money going into the production of videos and content on social media.

And the deeper you go down the rabbit holes, the stupider the content... and the higher the grift.

They're nothing more than honeypots for idiots.

Discuss.

 

[Paratus]

Every single doom and gloom economic collapse conspiracy channel that consistently makes wrong predictions yet maintains vast numbers of followers links to precious metal sellers and tax evasion scams.

The rest link to alt-med woo and other scams like EMF protection from your evil smart meter or WiFi 5Gs.

My theory is the vast majority of conspiracy theory rabbit holes exist to weed out any and all critical thinkers and in the end, you have a concentrated group of complete idiots ripe for grifting.

This explains the massive amounts of time and money going into the production of videos and content on social media.

They're nothing more than honeypots for idiots.

Discuss.

I’d say theory is the right word as it’s a well supported model that fits the facts. Take good ol’ Alex Jones (please).

Alex Jones Raked in $165 Million Over Three Years Selling Supplements and Prepper Gear

Alex Jones' Infowars store made $165 million over three years as his spread Sandy Hook lies, documents obtained by Huff Post reveal.

www.rollingstone.com

Made $165M in 3 years selling shitty supplements.

As for EMF i actually ran into a real-life case the other day. My garage door opener had been losing range. I used to be able to open it from the street. Now I have to be right outside the door and the wireless keypad was barely working.

Called customer support. Turned out the LED bulbs I had installed in the garage opener were interfering with the signal. Had to buy their $10 RF compatible bulbs.

 

[Amused]

I’d say theory is the right word as it’s a well supported model that fits the facts. Take good ol’ Alex Jones (please).

Alex Jones Raked in $165 Million Over Three Years Selling Supplements and Prepper Gear

Alex Jones' Infowars store made $165 million over three years as his spread Sandy Hook lies, documents obtained by Huff Post reveal.

www.rollingstone.com

Made $165M in 3 years selling shitty supplements.

As for EMF i actually ran into a real-life case the other day. My garage door opener had been losing range. I used to be able to open it from the street. Now I have to be right outside the door and the wireless keypad was barely working.

Called customer support. Turned out the LED bulbs I had installed in the garage opener were interfering with the signal. Had to buy their $10 RF compatible bulbs.

Yeah, I'm not talking about valid radio interference. But I think you know that. LOL

 

[skyking]

I do get an unclean feeling from the clickbait on some sites, like I wandered into the wrong end of the internet.

 

[lsd]

I thought this was common knowledge. They know these people are gullible as hell and easy to rip off. It's like taking candy from a baby.

 

[nakedfrog]

I don't know if that's really a conspiracy per se, or just capitalism at work, following the profits uber alles mantra.

 

[pmv]

I don't know that it's _always_ pure grift. Clearly it is a lot of the time. But quite a few of these people seem to believe their own scam, and the monetization is often just a side-line, a perversion of their initial purely ideological motivation.

In particular, the Anti-Semitism that's at the centre of many such theories seems to be more than a pure con-trick. That is, the perpetrators really feel that hatred themselves.

I gather historians still argue over what even Hitler's 'real' motivation was. In many ways he can be seen as simply a grifter and a con-artist...but seems he "genuinely" hated Jews.

Conversely I've heard it claimed that while David Icke's followers take his theories about 'lizards' controlling the world as being thinly-veiled code for the usual targets, he himself genuinely thinks the world is run by literal secret lizard people. I don't know what his 'real' motivations are. To me he just seems bonkers.

 

[pmv]

I mean, look at those cults where everyone ends up taking their own lives - often _including_ the cult leaders. If it were purely a scam to make money they surely took it a bit far when they killed themselves along with their followers?
(Could include a certain over-confident "engineer" and "explorer" in that)

 

[sandorski]

They recently went from Paranoid Conspiracy to Delusional Self Congratulation over all their conspiracies being "proven".

 

[Gardener]

Every single doom and gloom economic collapse conspiracy channel that consistently makes wrong predictions yet maintains vast numbers of followers links to precious metal sellers and tax evasion scams.

The rest link to alt-med woo and other scams like EMF protection from your evil smart meter or WiFi 5Gs.

Republicans/hard right fascists have latched onto this business model as well.

My theory is the vast majority of conspiracy theory rabbit holes exist to weed out any and all critical thinkers and in the end, you have a concentrated group of complete idiots ripe for grifting.

This explains the massive amounts of time and money going into the production of videos and content on social media.

And the deeper you go down the rabbit holes, the stupider the content... and the higher the grift.

They're nothing more than honeypots for idiots.

Discuss.

You've nailed it.

Speaking of the lack of critical thinkers, I'll toss the evangelical community in that lot...another target-rich site for scammers. Every few years a new MLM gets traction in the churches; food products, phony health insurance, investment scams. Amway built its business in Calvinist Grand Rapids Michigan with its minions working the church folks.

 

[Moonbeam]

I don't know that it's _always_ pure grift. Clearly it is a lot of the time. But quite a few of these people seem to believe their own scam, and the monetization is often just a side-line, a perversion of their initial purely ideological motivation.

In particular, the Anti-Semitism that's at the centre of many such theories seems to be more than a pure con-trick. That is, the perpetrators really feel that hatred themselves.

I gather historians still argue over what even Hitler's 'real' motivation was. In many ways he can be seen as simply a grifter and a con-artist...but seems he "genuinely" hated Jews.

Conversely I've heard it claimed that while David Icke's followers take his theories about 'lizards' controlling the world as being thinly-veiled code for the usual targets, he himself genuinely thinks the world is run by literal secret lizard people. I don't know what his 'real' motivations are. To me he just seems bonkers.

I mean, look at those cults where everyone ends up taking their own lives - often _including_ the cult leaders. If it were purely a scam to make money they surely took it a bit far when they killed themselves along with their followers?
(Could include a certain over-confident "engineer" and "explorer" in that)

As usual, you offer what I consider a deeper perspective than boiler plate on this forum. I think you are deeply analytical as well as fair minded and balanced, willing to live with the uncertainty that comes from seeing without an agenda.

Probably that’s just because I just find myself sharing similar points of view.

In the case we have here I chalk up the origins of the phenomenon to an unconscious need for company. I see the roots of the stupidity involved is conspiracy gullibility to insecurity created by fear.

Not only is there a deep evolutionary tendency to seek safety in numbers, but in humans there is also a far higher capacity to predict, to anticipate, and thus hopefully counter threat.

One always feels safer thinking one knows the nature of the threats we face and is taking measures to mitigate them.

The safest place to be then is a conspiracy cult. It not only reinforces the sense of certainty the threat has been identified, that one has help in its mitigation, but also that the greater the number of others similarly delusional, the less risk to each individual.

But, since, at least in my opinion, the threat is imaginary, paranoid thinking prod.iced by conditioned self hate in childhood that can be truly mitigated by means that increase honest self awareness and reliving pain, all such conspiracy thinking will ultimately fail to heal.

Because we died psychically becoming sick, and because our most profound motivation is not to feel that again, we are left with an unconscious belief that the only way out is real death.

The enemy was always how we feel and death is the ultimate way to insure we feel nothing. And to feel nothing while alive is a living hell.

 

[Vic]

Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.

 

[Indus]

Sadly we have it here too as witnessed in my NY crime thread..

It's not hard for the GOP to make inroads with crimes caught on camera and the politicians and police just quoting stats.

Stats can just create confirmation bias where as the actual events.. especially when there are enough of them are much more powerful and tell their own story.

NY Dem politicians need to get tough on crime.

 

[UNCjigga]

As if the grifters weren’t coming up with new bullshit fast enough, now we have AI to contend with. Even though I don’t consider myself liable to fall for these scams, I do have aging parents. My mom bought wholesale into this Kangan water bullshit and in the past 20 years she hasn’t found a single MLM scam that she could walk away from.

AI is filling up the internet with garbage spam sites

Hundreds of sites serving up real ads over AI-generated text are causing headaches for users and advertisers alike.

www.pcworld.com

 

[pmv]

I think the OP is letting the conspiracy believers off too lightly, in implying they are victims of cynical grifters. Often people choose to believe in such theories because they want a kind of psychological cover-story to conceal their own moral failings.

Case in point -

How 'climate lockdowns' became the new battleground for conspiracy-driven protest movement

Protesters radicalized by their opposition to Covid-19 lockdowns have a new target: anti-traffic measures.

www.nbcnews.com

Petrolheads need to try and justify their limitless sense-of-entitlement. They are in reality just outraged at the idea that they aren't an aristocrat class, with the right to lord it over everyone else, but they can't admit that to themselves so they adopt crackpot theories in order to paint themselves as victims.

It's the case for motorists as a group as it is for white Christians, as a group, or any number of other powerful and overly-entitled groups who are desperate to see themselves as victims in order to avoid acknowledging their real motivations.

Conspiracy theories are what you get when such groups really struggle to find a way to conceal their own morally-indefensible attitudes (including from themselves).

 

[Moonbeam]

Sadly we have it here too as witnessed in my NY crime thread..

It's not hard for the GOP to make inroads with crimes caught on camera and the politicians and police just quoting stats.

Stats can just create confirmation bias where as the actual events.. especially when there are enough of them are much more powerful and tell their own story.

NY Dem politicians need to get tough on crime.

You are just another member of 'the cult that others must be punished' because you are afraid to see yourself. You will only feel save when surrounded by authoritarian liberals willing to punish those you fear. You will always quake in your boots if you won't take them off.

 

[Moonbeam]

I think the OP is letting the conspiracy believers off too lightly, in implying they are victims of cynical grifters. Often people choose to believe in such theories because they want a kind of psychological cover-story to conceal their own moral failings.

Case in point -

How 'climate lockdowns' became the new battleground for conspiracy-driven protest movement

Protesters radicalized by their opposition to Covid-19 lockdowns have a new target: anti-traffic measures.

www.nbcnews.com

Petrolheads need to try and justify their limitless sense-of-entitlement. They are in reality just outraged at the idea that they aren't an aristocrat class, with the right to lord it over everyone else, but they can't admit that to themselves so they adopt crackpot theories in order to paint themselves as victims.

It's the case for motorists as a group as it is for white Christians, as a group, or any number of other powerful and overly-entitled groups who are desperate to see themselves as victims in order to avoid acknowledging their real motivations.

Conspiracy theories are what you get when such groups really struggle to find a way to conceal their own morally-indefensible attitudes (including from themselves).

As I have pointed out many times, one of the ways children survive childhood putdowns is to identify with their abusers rather than themselves. The reason they seek to play the victim card is because that is exactly what they are and need most to conceal. Any attempt as a child to play the victim would have been profoundly dangerous and subjected them to even more violence or threat of it. The name of the game was to deny their real motivations including to themselves. The victim card is what leaks out of a repressed psyche and is visible only to the psychologically aware. The one thing that a victim must conceal is his or her hatred for their abusers and the way to best do that is to lie to one's self, to become what one hates.

Edit: I agree but am interested in why at a foundational rather than behaviorally descriptive level.

 

[Moonbeam]

Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.

I think actual drug addiction might actually be easier to beat.

 

[Indus]

You are just another member of 'the cult that others must be punished' because you are afraid to see yourself. You will only feel save when surrounded by authoritarian liberals willing to punish those you fear. You will always quake in your boots if you won't take them off.

Yes yes yes

I'm part of the admittedly naive independent cult who wants to see Justice/ Karma on some assholes who refuse to obey the law..

I'd say Mike Pence got off lightly..

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679944910701486085

 

[Moonbeam]

Yes yes yes

I'm part of the admittedly naive independent cult who wants to see Justice/ Karma on some assholes who refuse to obey the law..

I'd say Mike Pence got off lightly..

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679944910701486085

I am trying to boycott twitter. Your idea of justice is to punish people who believe are guilty. That is a very large cult of fools who think their idea of justice is just. Please go punish yourself for your deviant thinking and let me know how deeply the cure worked in your case. You are anti-American and that is a sin deserving of the death penalty. Trust me. I know what is right and who should be punished far far better than you. Only I am qualified to be judge jury and executioner, you dangerous twit. There are a few in front of you but your turn is coming. You might want to book passage to Russia while you can. You aren't that far down the list.

 

[Indus]

I am trying to boycott twitter. Your idea of justice is to punish people who believe are guilty. That is a very large cult of fools who think their idea of justice is just. Please go punish yourself for your deviant thinking and let me know how deeply the cure worked in your case. You are anti-American and that is a sin deserving of the death penalty. Trust me. I know what is right and who should be punished far far better than you. Only I am qualified to be judge jury and executioner, you dangerous twit. There are a few in front of you but your turn is coming. You might want to book passage to Russia while you can. You aren't that far down the list.

Umm..

When's the last time you saw a mental health professional?

 

[Moonbeam]

Umm..

When's the last time you saw a mental health professional?

Please don't try to play such mind games with me, as if you knew something about mental health. I am the worlds leading authority on mental health and see myself daily in the mirror. I am definitely not only perfectly same but you are completely nuts. See how that works. A sane person just showed you yourself in the mirror. Aren't I absolutely gorgeous? You deserve nothing less than the best of the back of my hand.

And remember many of your fellow liberals have already adequately explained to you that you're nuts so please take your own advise and seek help. I am just an echo of an inner voice you don't want th hear. Many have faced what you fear, the utter futility of rage. Nobody is morally guilty of what happened to you. You are a victim of a machine that can feel no remorse. But you can morn for yourself and heal. Good luck finding someone else who will tell you what I have. This is the Way. Love you.

 

[Indus]

Please don't try to play such mind games with me, as if you knew something about mental health. I am the worlds leading authority on mental health and see myself daily in the mirror. I am definitely not only perfectly same but you are completely nuts. See how that works. A sane person just showed you yourself in the mirror. Aren't I absolutely gorgeous? You deserve nothing less than the best of the back of my hand.

And remember many of your fellow liberals have already adequately explained to you that you're nuts so please take your own advise and seek help. I am just an echo of an inner voice you don't want th hear. Many have faced what you fear, the utter futility of rage. Nobody is morally guilty of what happened to you. You are a victim of a machine that can feel no remorse. But you can morn for yourself and heal. Good luck finding someone else who will tell you what I have. This is the Way. Love you.

I love you too

 

[Moonbeam]

I love you too

View attachment 83040

OK. I'll add male chauvinist pig to the charges. Your Mother would be proud. How about Sister or wife? Do you prefer soap in the mouth or being whipped? Bad boy, whatcha gonna do when they come for you.

 

[Amused]

OK. I'll add male chauvinist pig to the charges. Your Mother would be proud. How about Sister or wife? Do you prefer soap in the mouth or being whipped? Bad boy, whatcha gonna do when they come for you.