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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Question for the peanut gallery: does a conspiracy remain conspiracy (in terms of topics discussed in this thread) if it turns out to be "true"??

There was news story from years ago this reminds me of. There's a saying that you're not paranoid if the government actually IS watching you. It's been a while since I read about this, so bear with me. A guy with antigovernment opinions lived alone in his small home that was somewhat isolated behind woods. He was a bit of a crackpot, and spouted off online about government conspiracies and coverups. Reading about his activities at the time this guy was definitely in the tinfoil hat territory, but as far as I can tell he wasn't really hurting anyone. It was enough grab the attention of local law enforcement who raided his home. He put up no resistance and surrendered, but instantly invoked his right to remain silent. They still had him in custody in his home when they carried his computer out the front door and he started laughing. Apparently this guy thought ahead and had installed large electro magnets into his doorframe strong enough to wipe his hard drive if anyone tried carrying it through. The police tried to charge him with destruction of evidence for not informing them of this, but it was thrown out as he was under no obligation to tell them anything, especially when he invoked his right to remain silent. In the end I don't think he faced any real charges.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’d forgotten he made Unbreakable to be fair

Split was also pretty good, and I loved watching The Village. The thing with Shyalaman was that after 6th sense everyone expected a twist at the end of every movie. It was like his version of an MCU after credits scene. The fact that people expected it was what ruined it. I have a feeling that if he had released some of his movies under pseudonym that they'd have been better received.

OK doke folks.

With the US about to enter full election mode, I propose a break from discussing the Conspiracy Theories related to it. Much as Qanon et al are interesting topics, I feel now isn’t the time if we want to keep the thread open. Especially given seems the potential Vice President has already been lined up for more than a few.

It’s not that I don’t trust you guys to keep a level head, so much as I don’t want to attract provocative, veiled comments etc.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
OK doke folks.

[snip]

It’s not that I don’t trust you guys to keep a level head, so much as I don’t want to attract provocative, veiled comments etc.

Would the subject of cryptozoology be an acceptable diversion for CT discussion?? (For those who may not be familiar with the term, its the umbrella subject covering things like Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, Yeti and similar creatures)

Absolutely! Love a bit of Cryptozoology.

People often dismiss Cryptozoology as total crackpotery. In many cases it is, but it hasn't totally struck out. In the last 200 years there have been several "mythical" creatures that have turned out to be factual. Gorillas, Giant Panda, Platypus. Heck, it wasn't until this year that they discovered a new species of Orca living far off the coast of Argentina.

I'm obviously not a believer in the multiheaded Hydra or anything like that. I'm skeptical of bigfoot, but I wouldn't be surprised if at some point it's discovered that they were a rare primate species that was near extinction for the 500 years.

I think one of my favorites is the "Rock Apes" of Vietnam. Probably because it mixes military history and Cryptozoology, and what person on a forum like this won't be drawn to that!

Related, I also have a dim memory in Medieval History about a race of dog-headed men. They were supposedly ruthless in battle, but the name and details escapes me. Anyone?

One explanation for conspiracy theorists:

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans

All Forteana is of interest to me, except when it gets really loopy.

A good Fortean investigation isn’t about trying to prove X, so much as ruling out all other possible explanations. And that done, keeping an open mind on X.

A good example - https://www.livescience.com/61048-yeti-hair-dna-analyzed.html

Here we see scientists analysing purported Yeti remains, hairs and that. They didn’t come from the ‘let’s prove it’s a Yeti’, or ‘let’s prove it’s not a Yeti’. Just ‘OK, let’s see what each sample is’

And you can pick up interesting factoids from the Fortean world. For example, the stories of ‘UFO Abductees’ closely match stories from centuries past of Fairy abductions.

Now, without ruling out any particular reasons (no matter how daft), it does suggest these people have some kind of shared experience. I think there’s on going psychological and psychiatric research into it. Again, not trying to prove or disprove, just to provide as scientific an explanation as possible. Yes, I too doubt it will be Aliens or Fairies!

Still a fascinating study.

 Matt Swain wrote:
One explanation for conspiracy theorists:

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans

This reminds me of a humorous bit on Alien News Desk or whatever that show on comedy central was about the two alien news reporters reporting wildly inaccurate stories about Earth to an alien audience. They had a bit that was all about how humans seemed to value idiocy, to the point that we measured it with 'IQ' and seemed proud that our 'IQ' was rising, with examples of various really stupid gak people have said or done.

Genuine working title for it is Schizotypy.

Now. This is a hot potato. And no mistake. So rather than offer comment, or inviting comment and discussion, the following is for information only

And remember. Just because it’s related to schizophrenia, it doesn’t mean anyone is schizophrenic in the common perception.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy

Remember. Information only

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
OK doke folks.

[snip]

It’s not that I don’t trust you guys to keep a level head, so much as I don’t want to attract provocative, veiled comments etc.

Would the subject of cryptozoology be an acceptable diversion for CT discussion?? (For those who may not be familiar with the term, its the umbrella subject covering things like Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, Yeti and similar creatures)

I seem to remember Josh Gates or whatever his name is from Destination: Truth finding some samples that were tested and the DNA didn't match anything on file. Not saying it's cryptids, but part and parcel with eliminating everything else first.

Does this mean we can talk about the Rep that wanted to do the dirty with Bigfoot?

 Laughing Man wrote:
Does this mean we can talk about the Rep that wanted to do the dirty with Bigfoot?

whatever floats someones boat i guess.

 Laughing Man wrote:
Does this mean we can talk about the Rep that wanted to do the dirty with Bigfoot?

Love knows no species.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:
Does this mean we can talk about the Rep that wanted to do the dirty with Bigfoot?

Love knows no species.

I've watched/read/played enough science fiction media to know that is a fact

Josh Gates is pretty legit, not just another ancient aliens or oak island hairbrain.

Though I have a personal theory that the oak Island guys know it is crap but also know how to make money with a TV show.

I've never really watched it but I got the feeling Oak Island was sort of half way between Pawn Stars and Storage Wars. The former being scripted real world events where the stuff is brought to them and legitimately sold and bought, the script is more the presentation of the transaction; with the latter being a totally artificial creation (the amount of rare/high value items in those lockers is beyond reasonable real world expectation - so either there are a LOT of lockers that are discounted or there's a bit of seeding of locker contents for the camera).

Oak island is pure fiction really, there are some interesting aspects to it though, most covered in the first few seasons, but I don't believe there is a treasure hidden there.

In terms of the interesting things, there are a range of seemingly man built underground water channels leading to the main mining shaft.

There has been extensive mining of the area including some weird things have been found during previous attempts.

And there does seem to be some man made reference points placed on the island, such as stones in unusually uniformed patterns when looking from a birds eye view.


I haven't watched it for years to be honest, I'd like them to wrap it up sooner than later now though, and it to be conclusive... I do actually want to know what is buried/built below the ground, mainly because I find it interesting some people went to such lengths before and why they did that.

Another load of crap but fairly entertaining along the same wavelength was a show called Search for the Lost Giants. I think it got cancelled after one series but it was entertaining/weird enough to have my attention.


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Though, both of those shows aren't a conspiracy to me, it's more urban legends. I suppose you could argue they are the same thing, however I don't think they are, and by definition of the words they are not.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And you can pick up interesting factoids from the Fortean world. For example, the stories of ‘UFO Abductees’ closely match stories from centuries past of Fairy abductions.

Now, without ruling out any particular reasons (no matter how daft), it does suggest these people have some kind of shared experience. I think there’s on going psychological and psychiatric research into it. Again, not trying to prove or disprove, just to provide as scientific an explanation as possible. Yes, I too doubt it will be Aliens or Fairies!

Still a fascinating study.

Pretty sure there are previous studies on this, and the likely conclusion is sleep paralysis, and sometimes the semi-conscious mind fills in (hallucinates) the details with latest cultural bogeyman, be it aliens, faeries or succubi.

Sleep paralysis is so weird. There's one instance of mine where I still entertain the question whether what was happening was actually real it wasn't, just the experience is so vivid and I can still remember feeling actual pain and what that felt like, it's easy to understand how some people can confuse it, there's another instance where it took me the best part of a few hours to understand what I thought happened did not really happened. The exhaustion and other physical effects of it screw with your ability to validate the experiences... So weird.

Cryptozoology often has some basis in fact- animals are absolutely weird. Imagine the first time two dogs mated, and a pug popped out. Or the first guy to see a liger.

Or...https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/10/25/163620501/floridas-mystery-monkey-captured-after-three-years-on-the-lam

The mystery monkey of Tampa Bay, which spent three glorious years spreading cheer in our fair city, swimming in pools, stealing food, and demonstrating an immunity to tranquilizer darts. Oh and, because this is a Florida story, exposing everyone he came into contact with wtih herpes. Think about what legend that would have spawned even 60 years ago, when no one would believe you'd seen a monkey in your pool.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Sleep paralysis is so weird. There's one instance of mine where I still entertain the question whether what was happening was actually real it wasn't, just the experience is so vivid and I can still remember feeling actual pain and what that felt like, it's easy to understand how some people can confuse it, there's another instance where it took me the best part of a few hours to understand what I thought happened did not really happened. The exhaustion and other physical effects of it screw with your ability to validate the experiences... So weird.

And this is without adding in other elements such as :

1) Drink/drugs - ergo mind altering substances. Even if the person isn't using at the time of the event, prior use might well have caused damage or established trains of thought that influence their ability to interpret what happens.

2) Sleep deprivation/poor diet or other more minor health issues.

3) Tumours or other more serious health issues that have an adverse effect on the mind/body.



There's also apparently a whole subset of common dreams/influences that people can suffer from. Eg there are three dreams that people have - one is the dream where your teeth fall out; the other is that sense of a "dark person" standing over you - the latter sometimes coming with sleep paralysis; then there's the one where you are falling down (stairs, cliff, whatever). That last one often comes right before waking up and normally the falling becomes the panic trigger.

Let us not forget that human society can (and does) induce mental illness even in people who were not born with anything out of the ordinary. (I don't mean this as a knock on society; just an acknowledgement that what the human brain is adapted for =/= what it experiences in anything outside a hunter-gatherer state.)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Still awaiting delivery :(

I'll be honest, the delivery speed is putting a bit of a crimp in my desire to order masks from these people, even if I like the designs.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Let us not forget that human society can (and does) induce mental illness even in people who were not born with anything out of the ordinary. (I don't mean this as a knock on society; just an acknowledgement that what the human brain is adapted for =/= what it experiences in anything outside a hunter-gatherer state.)

that's what you get , when you evolve over ten thousands of years, only to urbanize in what 4000 years?.
Otoh, one could argue that it is evolution of mind and social structure itself. Which is immensly deterministic in a way. And personally a bit contrary to what we know how f.e. science and ideas behave , especially abstract theories and what counts as knowledge...

I think it's fair to say we are sort of going through our second 'enlightenment' in modern times in regards to changes that have been influenced by science, sociology, law, digitisation of life, government, the 'woke' era.... It's inevitable that such change comes with growing pains... I think humans are creatures of habit, who mostly envy a simplified life, not the case that everyone wants their own bit of land to hunt/gather but some stability in terms of knowing their direction and the path to take to get there, with minimised risk. That lack of security is having an impact on a persons mental health imo, it would be super interesting to be able to go back and look at the era's that spanned the first enlightenment and to gauge the impact that had on peoples mental health.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Let us not forget that human society can (and does) induce mental illness even in people who were not born with anything out of the ordinary. (I don't mean this as a knock on society; just an acknowledgement that what the human brain is adapted for =/= what it experiences in anything outside a hunter-gatherer state.)

that's what you get , when you evolve over ten thousands of years, only to urbanize in what 4000 years?.
Otoh, one could argue that it is evolution of mind and social structure itself. Which is immensly deterministic in a way. And personally a bit contrary to what we know how f.e. science and ideas behave , especially abstract theories and what counts as knowledge...

Science and ideas don't have behavior, or any capacity to _have_ behavior. How people behave when coping (or not) with science is an interesting area of study, however.

Abstract theories never count as knowledge. It can be interesting to see what fanfiction people write about the universe when they lack proper scientific tools to study it, but most of the time its just drivel.

There’s also the exponential development of tech we’ve seen in my lifetime.

Born in 1980, finished school in 1997. Whilst we had computers, we didn’t have the internet at school. Probably the last age group to be able to say that in the western world.

I’ve also grown up with vaccines being normal, keyhole surgery, and all sorts of frankly miraculous medical procedures.

With COVID? For the first time, we’re seeing Science actually Science in the wild. People don’t seem to realise Science is codified trial, error and analysis. Good Science should’ve been rigorous in trying to disprove its own claim.

And that’s pretty scary, really. I mean, I know my job inside out, but in terms of how the PC and software and that which allow me to do my job in the way I do? Not a clue. Never had to learn it, because we’ve an IT Department paid to worry about that and get it right.

Expand that, and I basically know bugger all about bugger all. Yet the world, more or less, works.

This has also come in an age where folk are, perhaps understandably, interested in easy answers to incredibly complex issues. There is a specific example or three I could give, and I’m sure you can guess what I’m thinking of. But let’s not explore how that can be exploited.

This is what Conspiracy Theorists prey upon. For example, the Flat Earth.

Except...they are of course cherry picking, and presenting the false dichotomy that “if X is wrong then that means I am right”.

Most of the debunking videos on the channels I’ve mentioned, especially Baldy Catz, really lean into that, explaining where the Flerfer has got it wrong, and why. And it’s worth noting there is no unified model for a Flat Earth which explains what we see in terms of star movement, seasons, day and night cycle etc etc.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Question for the peanut gallery: does a conspiracy remain conspiracy (in terms of topics discussed in this thread) if it turns out to be "true"??

There was news story from years ago this reminds me of. There's a saying that you're not paranoid if the government actually IS watching you. It's been a while since I read about this, so bear with me. A guy with antigovernment opinions lived alone in his small home that was somewhat isolated behind woods. He was a bit of a crackpot, and spouted off online about government conspiracies and coverups. Reading about his activities at the time this guy was definitely in the tinfoil hat territory, but as far as I can tell he wasn't really hurting anyone. It was enough grab the attention of local law enforcement who raided his home. He put up no resistance and surrendered, but instantly invoked his right to remain silent. They still had him in custody in his home when they carried his computer out the front door and he started laughing. Apparently this guy thought ahead and had installed large electro magnets into his doorframe strong enough to wipe his hard drive if anyone tried carrying it through. The police tried to charge him with destruction of evidence for not informing them of this, but it was thrown out as he was under no obligation to tell them anything, especially when he invoked his right to remain silent. In the end I don't think he faced any real charges.

Along these lines there's the case of Francis Rawls.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/ex-philadelphia-police-sergeant-freed-child-porn-francis-rawls-20200208.html

I na nutshell, rawls was a policeman in Philly who was accused of having kidporn on his pc in an encrypted file and refused to decrypt his files as it would essentially be providing testimony against himself. He was held in contempt (Contempt being a magical word of power that eliminates people's rights to due process and protections against unjust incarceration)

His argument was the decryption key was information in his head and the state could not force hmi to give it to them as it would be used against him. The state cannot force a person to give information against himself. The state used a lot of hair splitting and legalese to get around this.

The legal limit on this sort of contempt was 18 months but the courts cited a law passed before the constitution was written called the 'all writs act' that allowed for basically infinite imprisonment for refusing to comply with a court order. Ironically the state argued essentially it didn't really need the files he had encrypted as due to 'hashes' it was a 'forgone conclusion" that he had kidporn on his computer and decrypting would just verify what the state already knew.

Rawls refused and wad kept in prison for nearly 5 years before a court ruled that the limit the state could hold his was 18 months, which had passed over 3 years ago.

He was released in february and so far the state has not moved ahead on the kidporn charges despite claiming they had evidence he had it. Also the state has not tried the 'lather, rinse, repeat' tactic of as soon as someone is maxed out on a contempt charge immediately filing a brand new one and starting a new 18 month contempt cycle, which they can start over and over again. Like was done to chelsea manning.(So much for limited time on contempt charges...)

Some people were claim that the state was conspiring to establish a precedent allowing them to permanently imprison people for refusing to decrypt files. One guy even suggested police would just carry usb drives and plant them in people's cars with encrypted files on them, demand they decrypt them which they can't do, then imprison them forever without trial or appeal. Hey, no more messy planting drugs to frame people.

Given the fact that the state claimed they already had proof rawls had downloaded kid porn due to hashes ( A claim some computer security experts refute) and given the state did not pursue any case against rawls as soon as he was released it looks like the conspiracy nuts can't be discounted easily here. It indicates the state may not have a solid case against him.

The government is trying to quietly ban possession of effective encryption software, BTW. Glad I got my copy of safehouse explorer years ago.

I actually do believe the conspiracy crowd may be at least somewhat right here. Francis rawls seems tailor made as a case for legalizing coerced decryption, and the case involves kidporn, the mere accusation of which immediately shuts down a lot of people's reason, logic, common sense and restraint. So yes, maybe there was a conspiracy here to legalize endless imprisonment without trial, appeal, etc.

Or maybe not.

An example of how genuine fake news and conspiracy theory can have the direst of consequences.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53892856

Please note, I derive absolutely zero amusement from this. Rather, I feel genuine compassion for someone so utterly duped by woo peddling morons that they paid for it with their life, and the mess such leaves behind for their loved ones.

Wear your mask. Keep yourself clean. Sanitise as necessary. Do your best to observe social distancing.

Experts know stuff we don’t. That’s why they’re experts, and we’re mere plebs.

Take it seriously, be safe, live long, and prosper.