Here’s how this stuff starts with the conspiracy theorists:
An event happens which, to those who are of an inclination to question everything, question the official story about.
Alternative theories or ideas are proposed. Some is well meaning speculation and may be far off the mark. Some may intentionally be planted as red herrings.
Tribal allegiances form. Certain champions of the cause are believed with little question and certain theories or ideas, even if poorly thought out, become wedded to the ego. It becomes easy to believe that if the mainstream are lying to us about most things that they are lying to us about everything.
People are drawn to clickbait and alarmism on both sides, so while a mainstream news person might share a story that says “Source: Climate Change Will Cause Ocean Levels to Rise Above Florida Keys” a knee jerk conspiracy theorist might share an article that says “Source: DAARPA Geoengineering Technology Will Be Used to Put Florida Underwater.” As another example one side says “Expert: The Unvaccinated Will Have an Unprecedented Wave of Death this Winter” while the other side says “Expert: All Recipients of mRNA Injections Will Be Dead in 2-5 Years.”
The knee jerk conspiracy theorists can be manipulated through the use of red herrings, trolls, agent provocateurs and intentionally planted false evidence to take on views that isolate them from the mainstream.
And what motivations would the other side have for manipulating the conspiracy theorists? The same as any run of the mill person covering their crimes.
1. Planting false evidence obviously points the conspiracy investigators into dead ends, wasting their time.
2. These more outlandish and verifiably false conspiracy theories are used as strawmen for the mainstream, who broad brush paints everyone who, say, questions the safety and effectiveness of Covid “vaccines” as a QAnon believing flat Earther.
3. Those who have been drawn into these dead end corners are reluctant to change course or to simply drop it in pursuit of a larger goal. This causes infighting among people who are essentially on the same big picture side of an issue.
4. The class of people who have inside knowledge or perspective about the event i.e. ICU nurses in Covid wards, virologists, epidemiologists, law enforcement officers, whistleblowers within the DOD, vaccine protocol inspectors or just people say, living in Manhattan on September 11, 2001 are discredited by the fringe knee jerk conspiracy theorists, who then create their own echo chamber.
5. The movement to find out what really happened is isolated and subverted. The bad guys get off scot free to repeat their crimes.
Rinse and repeat.
Some days ago I wrote an article about What Do You Think Happened on 9/11? based on a video I saw posted on Twitter allegedly showing no airplanes hitting the Twin Towers.
The comments and discussion was very thought provoking and wonderful. My first thought on seeing the video was that maybe it was taken from a bad angle, though a few people mentioned how easily video editing could have erased the planes and how there was no chain of custody involving the video. It was likely an intentionally planted red herring.
Why do I believe airplanes hit the Twin Towers? Because I assume that in a city of 8 million people, several hundred thousand at least would have seen airplanes sticking out of the buildings with their own eyes. The missile hit the Pentagon theory is more plausible due to the relative lack of eyewitnesses but I’m on the fence there. It’s possible that these airplanes were somehow fitted drones I have read a theory that all passengers were landed and evacuated in Cleveland but I am not buying the Nobody Died at Sandy Hook Theory when we are dealing with murderers already.
I was living in Las Vegas during the Harvest Festival mass shooting in 2017, where one lone gun nut supposedly killed 58 and injured 500 more from his hotel suite in Mandalay Bay. The big picture story was off, in the sense that I’m pretty sure those injury and death numbers could not be accounted for by a single person shooting from 500 meters away for 9 minutes and 10 seconds without violating multiple laws of physics. I feel the same way about physics regarding the Twin Towers and especially WTC 7 collapsing. I read accounts from gun nuts, ballistics people and the like. Mike Adams at Natural News did the best takedown on that one.
Instead I got engaged in a dead end debate after an article was posted about crisis actors and fake ambulances at the scene of the Harvest Festival Massacre. The Nobody Died in Las Vegas theory was gaining traction among the knee jerk conspiracy theorists. I came onto a comments section on an article that got posted questioning this, based on my on the ground lived experience of A: Having a friend whose nephew was at the concert whose girlfriend was shot that night and B: Hearing somebody behind me in line at a gas station asking for medical updates about a friend also at the concert. I got accused of being some type of troll because apparently nobody lives in Las Vegas, a city with a population of 2.2 million people, either. I felt like the conversation was intentionally being steered into a dead end in order to memory hole the event. And memory holed it was.
I don’t think knee jerk conspiracy types consider carefully that red herrings might be planted to point them in the wrong direction. In a big made for media event with all the money and intelligence agencies in the world behind something, they obviously can doctor a few pictures, edit a few videos, fake a few records, or hire a few literally bad actors to make it look staged, while AT THE SAME TIME having a real tragedy unfold. The Nobody Died At Sandy Hook Theory (by the way I’ve read the book and have always been on the fence) appeals to some part of us that believes that the government really doesn’t want to kill us, just further some (perhaps even well intentioned) political objective. But this is naive. Those in power have shown time and time again that they are willing to kill any number needed to achieve their objectives. It always reminded me of episodes of Columbo in later seasons, where somebody always had some blackmail evidence on the killer, which they bring to the murderers attention, only to be slaughtered themselves. Don’t trust murderers.
Is Jeffrey Epstein still alive sipping mojitos somewhere? Maybe, if he had a solid enough escape hatch, like a look I have 50 associates who are going to release the snuff film that a certain prince did and that Satanic ritual a former sitting president did if I don’t confirm that I am alive with periodic updates type of thing. Think like a psychopath here.
Fellow Thailand expat Ben Bartee just did a piece on Alex Jones getting sued by parents in the Sandy Hook thing:
I’d like to think I can suss out true and false for myself with no need for any help. I’d love to see what’s in the court case there. Why do FBI types always seem to be standing back on these people?
Always consider that evidence might be planted by the other side to lead you astray. That rabbit hole could be a brick wall otherwise.
I prefer the term 'conspiracy realist' nowadays. I've lost count of how many 'theories' have become realities since 2020. Validated and vindicated again and again. In some ways it makes fence sitters more palatable for the ever crazier topics we write about, to explore what might be the next revelation acknowledged by the legacy media.
The more the legacy media doubles down on and ridicules conspiracy theories, the more interest it piques in rationally debunking or validating said theories, using emerging information, facts, sources, studies.
Whereas the NPC community takes everything on faith and their unwavering belief system.
Certain personality types are more prone to questioning the narrative. It’s interesting!
A little Psychological Experiment - The Results
“…there were far more introverts than normal and far fewer extroverts. Readers here are more likely to be intuitive and therefore be more likely to spot patterns, read between the lines and are abstract and theoretical. There are an equal amount of thinkers (who are logical and like facts) and feeling types (who use their moral compass to make decisions). When it comes to how a person organises their world, there were more judging than perceiving personalities. These are people who want to take control of their environment, as opposed to flexible, spontaneous individuals.”
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/a-little-psychological-experiment-5a4