I know a few nutcases that believe in all of these but there are far more ; notably flat earth and the moon landing are missing for instance. But many more.
> Is “flat earth” not in the same camp as “the birds aren’t real”? I.e. never ever accept any possible hint that it’s satire, but it is satire
It probably started that way. But I've met people who seriously believe it. Combination of preferring a force that has its hands on the reins, even if in the shadows, to the anarchic reality human civilisation exists in, and longing for a sense of belonging, with the exercise of actually believing the ridiculous almost serving as a pledge of loyalty.
There is a Netflix documentary on it. They're real, they're having real conventions and everything. They sometimes even try to prove the earth is flat, but fail every time, which somehow does nothing to their convictions.
I know people who believe and try to convert others. Also they get aggressive when you find it nonsense. They believe that the govs of the world band together to patrol the ice wall, that education hides the real shape of our world, that all nasa materials are fake and made of deceive us etc. And flat earthers are well known to believe all other conspiracy theories as well and usually fit them in their flat view easily by making up theories that make no sense but spread like wildfire.
The real conspiracy is how the media was unable to discuss either critically, leading skeptics to become belivers that something, sinister or benign, was going on.
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."
Either you are doing that, or you are larping as a foolish conspiracy theorist because it's rather meta to do in this context, which is against the rules concerning trolling/flamebait.
Either way, please don't, it's rather hard to steelman a position that is so far removed from reality.
There are more than enough subreddits for either purpose, but hn should not be subjected to this.
You are correct, after having read a couple of other comments in here which endorsed similar conspiracy theories, I was primed to read the previous comment as of the poster also believed them. This is probably not even the case, it was just an addition of more theories to the list.
Re-reading my comment, it was also unnecessarily snarky, which is against the hn guidelines as well. So I am a hypocrite anyway, and would be even if the comment I replied to had actually endorsed those conspiracy theories in contradiction with the guidelines.
I'm not sure about the best practice in this case, do I delete my previous comment, or let it stand as a monument to my shame?
Interestingly, in the German-speaking scientific literature and science communicators, there is a movement to call it "conspiracy ideologies", "conspiracy myth" or "conspiracy narratives" (they have not found a consensus yet), because they're not theories according to Karl Popper and generally lack any properties that we would usually expect a scientific theory to have.
Personally, I disagree. No one feels flattered being called a "conspiracy theorist" and I don't really see the need to differentiate, especially if a general audience is being addressed.
You could argue that conspiracy theories are falsifiable, and it's just that conspiracy theorists won't accept any proof. The flat earth theory for instance is easily debunkable: just take a flight from Auckland to Santiago de Chile.
You're absolutely right of course, about flat-earthers. Those sorts of
people delight in dismissing incontrovertible physical evidence.
Compare that with "Who really shot JFK?". Let's say that tomorrow we
read a deathbed confession by the highest ranking CIA or KGB officer,
setting out exactly how it all went down. At least half the people
would just not believe it. Especially in the age of "deep-fakes". The
narrative would just "slip sideways" into "how the whole fake
confession was engineered". It's like chasing that last pea around the
plate with a fork. The sharper the instrument, the less use it is.
With time it's essentially become an unknowable thing.
So that's what a I mean my "perfect conspiracy theory". JFK is a much
more perfect "conspiracy" than flat-earth or faked moon landings which
have elements of timeless physical evidence.
> Some people might not agree they are conspiracy theories
Some people believe in a flat earth, that doesn't mean we pander to them.
The study presented the most extreme interpretation of each of trope. It didn't ask if one believes vaccines can cause harm. It asked if their harm is being "covered up by governments and pharmaceutical companies," and if "COVID-19 'vaccines' contain microchips to monitor and control people." That's chemtrail-calibre nonsense. (Which, of course, they include.)
As a thought experiment, if it was discovered tomorrow that that Covid vaccines had some terrible side effects, do you think that information would be made public given that the people that developed the vaccine and pushed for its rollout are mostly still in post?
> if it was discovered tomorrow that that Covid vaccines had some terrible side effects, do you think that information would be made public given that the people that developed the vaccine and pushed for its rollout are mostly still in post?
Yes. There is an incredibly motivated political constituency putting tremendous political capital on the table for anyone who can show this.
Secrets hide in banality. The stuff that gets covered up is more usually a chemical or treatment you and I have never heard of, because it's so, so, so fucking boring that even if you had terrible information about it, there is no ready constituency who would care.
I think things tend towards disclosure. We had coverups in the UK of rape gangs operating in northern towns which was eventually came to light after many years. I think if there are significant vaccine harms they will come to light. I don't know that if those harms exist they would have come to light by now.
The more people are involved, the most likely it is that it will be leaked shortly after. Intentionally harmful vaccines would incredibly hard to pull off.
But here, you're not in a conspiracy theory (or conspiracy myth as some would say). You have a falsifiable theory, "This specific vaccine have harmful side effects", you're not the only one. In France, we thought the HB vaccine increased SLS risks for a decade+: it was further enhanced by allergic reactions to some bad dosage, and some double vaccination during the 93 campaign (my mother was double vaccinated and reacted poorly the second time).
I know several people who waited for the non-RNA vaccine because they wanted to wait for more data before using new techniques, it isn't a conspiracy theory, just prudence. I disagree but i certainly respect the choice.
The basically undeniable lab leak hypothesis is included with a minor tweak that renders the claim incorrect. The thing about fluoride differs from reality only because it has incorrect claims about people's motives. If it said "Fluoride concentration is negatively correlated with IQ" it would just be a fact. "Vaccine harm coverup" is untrue but one could be forgiven for mistakenly believing in it after an endless stream of lies about vaccine efficacy and other sorts of covid misinformation from the CDC and WHO. For a specific example of this sort of thing, in April of 2022, at the height of big tech censorship of "covid misinformation," you could search for "is covid airborne" on Google and get a summary of this article[0] above all the search results, informing you that it's totally not airborne.
