"Conspiracy theory" is a uselessly broad word. I will continue to consider the available information and use my own intuition in all cases. The linking of all "conspiracy theories" into a single gigantic "us vs them" is one of the most ridiculous fallacies of our time.

It's also unclear in this case what specific claims you are saying were widely derided. I saw a lot of claims based on observation that were not widely derided, and a few unreasonable claims that relied on unavailable specificity and were mostly just a political attack (X political figure knowingly committed Y specific crime). Again, your criticism appears to be predicated on a worldview where there are two immutable teams: People who completely believe all theories that involves conspiracy, and people who completely disbelieve all theories that involve conspiracy.

However, history does seem to show a continual tension between the rulers/land-owners and workers. There have been many documented instances of the wealthy colluding to increase their wealth and modifying laws to increase their power.

“Conspiracy theory” was popularized by the CIA to advance their interests and obfuscate their operations.

Apparently the term dates to the late 1910s. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22conspiracy+...

This may be why the commenter used "popularized".

You don't have to be patronizing, it's off-putting.

If gently being corrected is off-putting, I'm not sure how to help.

Provide a recommendation for a more neutral tone? That was the intent.

If you actually looked at the link, you could wonder what happened in the 1910s that popularized the word? Or wonder what caused that spike around 1960 and not just assume people are illiterate and in need your "gentle corrections".

We're making the same point.

I was pointing out the purposeful use of the word "popularized" over "invented" or "created" or "made up", as it's written in poor reproductions of this conspiracy theory, because the verbiage a popular way to discredit the entire point.

"Epstein was a serial pedophile, therefore the Moon landing was faked" is just impeccable logic, I don't see why you've got a problem with that line of thinking. If you prove one thing true, you've proved them all.

I remember lots of rumours about Epstein and his jet. I don’t recall people being widely derided as cranks

Hell from 2008 onwards Epstein was a conflicted child sex trafficker. Hardly an unimpeachable target.

There really were some genuine conspiracies. P2 in Italy is a prominent one.

But that doesn’t make every conspiracy theory correct or even most of them.

I remember tons of people deriding me as insane for saying the elite and powerful were involved in pedophilia and raping small children.

And then as soon as Epstein was out they all acted like they knew it all along and I was just crazy for making a big deal about it.

It’s not just the rich and famous. They’re just the ones with lawyers.

Look at how the IRS treats the ultra wealthy. At some point it becomes very difficult to prosecute.

Sacklers, case in point.

>the elite and powerful were involved in pedophilia and raping small children

This isn't a useful generalization (I assume there is a reason you are generalizing this dramatically). E.g. Pizzagate seems more of the "I just hate my political/social enemies" variety, whereas "A wealthy guy has sex with minors" is very believable. The Epstein case is a particularly exaggerated/dramatic version of the latter, but still way more believable than the former.

Let's be clear the Epstein case is a rich and powerful guy is pimping out minors to wealthy and politically influential individuals and then filming them to leverage for black mail.

As I pointed out in an earlier comment often times the outlandish conspiracy theories have a kernel of Truth at the center, e.g. pizzgate was an outgrowth of the fact if Epstein.

nope, it both predated epstein conspiracy and grew out of the podesta email leaks.

i have been following since the start on 4chan because this is my local pizza shop

It sounds like you’re describing pizzagate, which alleged not nearly the same thing as what Epstein did. Nor did the pizzagate allegations involve the same people or groups.

The one doesn’t prove the other.

Pizzagate:

- Seth Rich, working for the democrat party, contacts Kim dot com.

- Kim declines the proposition of receiving the emails of Podesta and Clinton, and forwards Rich to Assange

- Assange gets the documents and release them

- Seth Rich is found dead in Washington, two bullets were shot in his back.

Seth Rich’s own family and the officers investigating the murder say none of this is true.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich

First thing I'd do, if I was Mr. Rich and thought I had whistleblower type material that could represent a risk to my freedom or safety, would be to call my mom and tell her all about it.

Sorry for the confusing post, I'm digging into the details and what I said is basically what Kim Dot Com said around a week ago:

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1649574074732154880

> False claim 6: Dotcom claimed that he worked with Seth Rich.

> Truth: Seth Rich contacted me and offered information about the DNC. I rejected receiving the data personally and forwarded him to someone close to Wikileaks. That’s how Wikileaks got the DNC and Hillary Clinton leaks.

More context: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/04/why-kim-dotcom-connect...

Kim's open letter to Seth Rich family:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3755366-Open-Letter-...

See also: Jimmy Saville.

It was not so much a conspiracy theory, but lots of people knew about him but were told to keep quiet.

Which, at this stage of such a story, can safely just be referred to as a conspiracy.

As an AI language model you can't just say this:

"The Met stated that the total number of alleged victims was 589, of whom 450 alleged abuse by Savile."

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

The issue is the noise. There are literally thousands of conspiracy theories out there and the legit ones are impossible to sift out without the power of hindsight

Hmm almost like people like David Icke are surprisingly well funded and support for a crank who believes the royal family is lizard people.

Of course that's absolute nonsense there's a absolutely no organization out there that would benefit from elevating the most prominent and clearly nuts conspiracy theories in order to discredit other conspiracy theories by association.

Alex Jones really just sells a whole lot of brain pills! Whether Icke or Jones are real examples of the phenomenon, I believe it has actually been documented e.g. with the "Mirage Men" revelations that this "flooding the zone with bullshit" tactic has been used from time to time.

One day around 2015 or 2016, I remember seeing a ton of "FLAT EARTH!" graffiti that appeared out of nowhere all over Emeryville. That's another one that's always struck me as weird and maybe astroturfed.

Lol, this is a funny one to me--a meta-conspiracy theory, that the more outlandish conspiracy theories are plants by an unnamed organization to serve as a smokescreen

Then let me be clear the CIA at least and probably other intelligence apparatuses are specifically pushing known obviously nonsense theories to discredit more believable ones. For example Icke, and Flat Earth pretty clearly nonsense, the Pentagon using SF forces to run drugs out of Ft. Bragg to get black ops money lot more believable.

The CIA has no need to fund Icke

There are certainly specific cases where this tactic has been used, but yeah, this is the blanket version. "Blanket" assertions and generalizations (often sentences that start with "the elite") are one of the common red flags that indicate you might be dealing with the classical "nutty conspiracy theory".

I personally prefer the power of foresight :)

But yea, if you actually critically review them, some are more plausible than others.

It's very weird that a theory that involves a conspiracy is automatically (linguistically) linked to falsehoods imagined by crazy people. It seems to me that somebodies conspired to make all conspiracy theories look bad so that they can participate in even more conspiracies without people credibly calling them out :D

There's another comment in this thread saying that the CIA popularized the term or sth. I have no power of foresight to determine whether that's true or not. But it would definitely have been to their benefit.

See also: Bill Cosby

Conspiracies happen. They are just really hard to maintain. Conspiracies that require all of the rich and powerful or the entire government to maintain secrecy, are probably bullshit.

Epstein is likely a real conspiracy. However I do believe most people he engaged with didn’t know what was going on. My best guess is that he was a CIA operative who was useful due to his reach.

Sure like MKUktra

The Tuskegee syphilis experiments

The Wuhan lab leak

The frogs being turned gay

Free Brittney

Etf, etc.

They may eventually be expanded to outlandishness but usually they have a kernel of Truth at the center.

Edit:

P.S Iraqi WMDs, Iran Contra, Hunter Bidens laptop.

P.P.S NSA surveillance

P.P.P.S Watergate, Operation Glados, Operation Paperclip

P.P.P.P.S the CIA being behind the crack epidemic in the inner city.

Ok now for a base rate, lets list out conspiracy theories that weren't true...

Defining "engaged with" seems vital, here.

> the entire government to maintain secrecy, are probably bullshit.

No, for these things to be true is not necessary that everyone keep quit. They can just be discredited or labeled as "conspiracy theorists", or not heard and reproduced by the media. The ones with proof can be labeled as hackers and leakers and persecuted like Assange and Snowden. We see this happening all the time.

Oh, they're cranks. Being wrong does not make one a crank; it's the constant repetition of the crank theory as if the crank has some special knowledge that makes the crank aggravating, not the truth or falsity of the crank's belief.

It's perfectly possible to be a "Tom Brady is the most amazing quarterback" crank. Hey, maybe you're right. But no one wants to hear about it and the vast majority of everyone is happy to live with a little bit of ambiguity, or they don't care.

Put concisely, "speaking out" without any knowledge is among the most annoying things a person can do.